Cisco invests in Israeli startup

PARIS — Celeno Communications Inc., Israeli provider of semiconductors for multimedia WiFi home networking applications, announced it has raised $16 million in a Series C round of financing led by Cisco Systems, Inc. and the company's initial investors, namely Greylock Partners and Pitango Venture Capital.

Celeno Communications (Ra'anana, Israel) said the funds will be used to help the company increase sales and marketing activities and enhance next generation product development activities. Since its creation three years ago, Celeno has raised a total of $30 million.

Celeno Communications is a fabless semiconductor startup company developing components and subsystems for carrier-class WiFi systems and networks. Celeno claims its technology enables a new vision in home wireless networking by delivering high definition carrier-class multimedia content throughout the home. Its components are said to provide the boost in throughput, coverage, and QoS necessary to deliver multiple HDTV, SDTV, VoIP and Data "triple play" services over the home network, the company added.

Celeno's core competency is based on spatial radio switching combined with adaptive channel coding, dynamic time-space scheduling, and multimedia QoS optimization. The technology targets applications requiring the highest level of system performance (capacity and reach), consistent carrier-class multimedia QoS, and tight security protection.

Commenting on Cisco's investment, Gilad Rozen, CEO of Celeno, declared: "Cisco's expertise in home networking and video distribution brings complementary skills to address service providers' and consumers' needs for robust, carrier-grade IP video distribution solutions in the home. We look forward to a fruitful and lasting collaboration with our investment partners."