Tasman Networks Secures $14.4 Million in Funding From New and Existing Investors

New Funding Supports Tasman’s Customer and Partner Expansion Efforts in Service Provider and OEM Markets

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Tasman Networks, a leading provider of intelligent, multi-service edge routers for the service provider, OEM, and enterprise markets, today announced it has secured $14.4 million in new equity financing. Parker Price Venture Capital, joined by new investor Harbinger Venture Management, led the funding round. Existing investors Mayfield, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), and Tasman employees participated in the round. This latest round brings Tasman's total funding to $93 million. Tasman will use the new capital to expand the company's engineering, marketing, and sales organizations to support its customer and partnership growth in the service provider and OEM markets.

"Tasman has positioned itself as a key provider of advanced, industry-proven edge routers and has gained significant customer traction and aligned itself with the right partners in the industry," said Kent Price, founder and president of Parker Price Venture Capital. "Parker Price supported this funding round because we are confident in the performance of Tasman's technology and are impressed by the company's growing customer and partner base. We believe Tasman is positioned to play a major role in this market."

"Harbinger believes in the strength of Tasman's management team, and the superior value its products bring to its customers," said C.K. Cheng, general partner for Harbinger USA. "Tasman is solving a real problem that still exists for carriers today: the last mile bottleneck. Tasman is enabling carriers to maximize bandwidth utilization at the edge of their networks to eliminate last mile bottleneck constraints by leveraging carriers' existing copper infrastructure -- an exceptional investment protection."

Tasman Networks delivers intelligent, multi-service edge routers that scale from fractional T1 to multiple DS-3 bandwidths. The company competes in the $4 billion mid-range and branch office routing market. Tasman's unique, fast path architecture delivers the performance and advanced functionality needed for customers in the service provider, government, financial, media/entertainment, and enterprise segments.

The company's Virtual Ethernet technology allows customers to deploy the routers transparently into existing infrastructure. The original routing, security, management, and Quality of Service (QoS) policies can still be used, and the WAN and local networks appear as a single large Ethernet network.

In addition, Tasman's products provide a scale-on-demand provisioning capability to economically adjust to changing customer bandwidth needs. Additional ports can be turned on and bonded together remotely without the need for expensive truck-rolls or equipment upgrades. Tasman routers can be deployed in a variety of network configurations that maximize system uptime with no single point of failure, even while running advanced services such as QoS and security.

Based on test results reported by The Tolly Group (January 2003), Tasman routers provide three times the throughput of its leading competitor's products by delivering full wire-speed performance with advanced services running. With maximum bandwidth utilization, full wire-speed performance, and the lowest latency in its class, Tasman's products are ideal for running high-performance, high-demand applications like voice and video.

"Mayfield has been a long-term investor in Tasman Networks and we continue to support the company because it has proven that its business model can work," said Kevin Fong, managing partner, Mayfield. "Wire-speed performance, advanced security, and robust high-availability features are more critical at the edge of the network than ever. We believe that Tasman Networks has the right technology, management team, and market timing to meet the demanding needs of its service provider and OEM customers."

"Tasman Networks continues to get strong support from its existing investors due to its unique routing technology and the progress it has made in its OEM and service provider markets," said Paul Smith, chief executive officer for Tasman Networks. "In addition, Tasman has also been able to attract new investors like Parker Price and Harbinger Venture Management in its latest funding round. The new capital will help ensure that we have the necessary funds for further product development, sales, and marketing to meet the increased demand of our customers and partners."

For more information visit the Tasman Networks website: www.tasmannetworks.com



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