- WiteSand, a new startup supplying cloud-based mostly network controls for enterprises, launched this week.
- Founder Praveen Jain is a former Cisco exec who assisted create 4 other corporations really worth more than $2.2 billion.
- When WiteSand is not replacing Cisco’s components, it competes with some of its software program equipment.
- See extra tales on Insider’s organization website page.
Extensive-time Cisco exec and serial entrepreneur Praveen Jain has a new startup that functions on prime of technological know-how from his former employer.
Jain labored at Cisco for several yrs, mostly due to the fact it kept getting startups he labored at. He was an executive at networking startups Andiamo Techniques and Nuova Programs and himself launched Insieme Networks, all of which were obtained by Cisco in 2004, 2008, and 2013, respectively, for above $2.2 billion in whole.
Soon after Cisco purchased Insieme, he stayed on as a senior vice president till 2016, when he still left to start edge computing organization Pensando Methods, which has raised in excess of $278 million. Though he nonetheless retains equity in the business, he left in 2018 when he landed upon his future major plan: Cloud-primarily based network administration.
As his pondering goes, it has hardly ever been messier for significant companies to control their networks.
At each and every business office, firms commonly rely on numerous vendors to run their networks: 1 to deliver switches that join equipment by way of ethernet, yet another to handle wireless net, and however one more to protected the networks and be certain unauthorized parties don’t break in. And the increase of hybrid function has launched even far more chaos as employees accessibility firm networks from unpredictable places.
Enter WiteSand, Jain’s new startup that released publicly this week immediately after running in stealth method for the earlier yr and aims to capitalize on companies’ want for more simple network controls. The business offers membership-based software program that operates in the cloud and handles all network features – which include analytics and access controls – leaving bodily switches as the only hardware companies need to preserve on-premise.
“Right now, persons have these five distinctive goods and when a trouble comes about or when a person is just not capable to link, they have to go by all the different consoles,” Jain told Insider. “All of that will get removed with WiteSand.”
WiteSand
The organization has raised $12.5 million in seed funding from unnamed traders, Jain mentioned, adding that its head rely is “approaching 50” employees.
Though WiteSand is effective on major of the components furnished by suppliers like Cisco, Jain admits that it also replaces some of its software program equipment, putting him in competition with his former employer.
Jain cofounded WiteSand along with main scientist Raja Tadimeti and VP of platform application Madhava Cheethirala, both equally of whom also labored at Cisco right before assisting to direct Insieme and Pensando.
WiteSand has now signed numerous consumers, Jain reported, and strategies to focus on organizations that cope with significant networks, like healthcare corporations and managed support suppliers.
Jain told Insider that his method for founding a organization starts with listening to shoppers and “sensation their suffering.” He believes WiteSand will triumph due to the fact IT teams are at the moment overburdened with far too quite a few vendors jogging their networks amid hybrid operate.
“When we started off, we have been by now pondering that the cloud is the upcoming. Just one 12 months into the corporation, covid regrettably occurred. The workforce is now hybrid,” Jain claimed. Far more than even before, the cloud grew to become the central location to manage networks: “So that proved us right.”