VOD server maker Edgeware raises $8M, enters NA market

Edgeware, a flash memory-based server company specializing in IPTV and video delivery, announced the closing of $8 million in Series B funding and the opening of its first U.S. office Tuesday. New investor Micron Technology led the funding round along with previous investors Amadeus Capital Partners and Creandum Advisor.

"With this capital injection we are well positioned to actively expand our business, when many of our competitors are downsizing," said Joachim Roos, CEO of Edgeware. "Our customers continue to invest in infrastructure for home entertainment. The fact that we manage to secure funding like this under current conditions in the financial sector sends a strong message."

The funding will be used to focus on expansion in the North American market, which has begun with the opening of its first U.S. office in San Jose, Calif., and the hiring of former Motorola sales executive David Appleman to lead North America sales efforts.

Edgeware's first U.S. customer is over-the-top video provider ZillionTV, which publicly launched earlier this month.

Edgeware's advantage over traditional offerings is its deployment in the network to provide a distributed architecture that uses much less power while maintaining QoS. Using flash memory instead of traditional disk storage drives the operational costs of Edgeware's network equipment down with lower electrical bills and more reliable equipment.

Appleman said this model is much more economical than building out lots of dedicated server capacity for the smaller telcos and cablecos Edgeware wants to reach in the North American market. Appleman said the company is in initial conversations with several Tier 2 and Tier 3 providers that would like to deploy a video on-demand or IPTV service, but need to bring the cost of deploying it down significantly.

Edgware is also reaching out to CDNs and showing how Edgeware servers could reduce operational expenses by lowering power consumption and optimizing network performance, according to Roos. He thinks the Edgeware products will provide the capacity to deliver video reliably, while remaining considerably less expensive than other server solutions. 

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