Network Cloud pioneer Alkira looks to scale after $54m funding boost

Pictured: Amir Khan and Atif Khan, CEO and CTO of Alkira

 

Network Cloud start-up Alkira has raised $54 million in Series B funding, led by the investment wing of Koch Industries, one of its first customers

 

Alkira was established by brothers Amir Khan and Atif Khan, CEO and CTO respectively. The pair founded and sold SD-WAN pioneer Viptela to Cisco in 2017 for $610 million. Their new venture is all about offering network-as-a-service [NaaS] to enterprises trying to manage multi-cloud connectivity.

 

“Anybody who is struggling to manage multiple cloud environments is reaching out to us,” said Amir Khan. “There is a need for a common infrastructure from the connectivity perspective. Whether it’s on-demand, hybrid or multi-cloud, this needs to be seamless across all those environments from the connectivity perspective. You need to be able to configure it in minutes, and provision it in less than hour right across any geography in the world anywhere to anywhere.”

 

He added that this year’s pandemic has helped to accelerate the need for as-a-service multi-cloud solutions as companies are shifting more and more of their business to the cloud.

 

Koch Disruptive Technologies, owned by Koch Industries, the second-biggest privately held company in the US, was joined in the latest funding round by existing investors Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, GV (formerly Google Ventures) and others. Koch Managing Director Jason Illian joins the Khan brothers on Alkira’s board, along with current director Mamoon Hamid of Kleiner Perkins and Bill Coughran of Sequoia. Alkira has raised $76M to date.

 

“Koch Industries is a significant customer to cloud providers, and we have seen first-hand how Alkira’s powerful and intuitive network simplifies a company’s transition to the cloud,” said Chase Koch, president of Koch Disruptive Technologies. “At Koch’s scale an agile, global, end-to end network is critical to our competitiveness and growth and we are excited to lead Alkira’s Series B investment.”

 

An unmissable opportunity to learn more about Network Cloud and other topical enterprise networking issues can be found at the following event. A panel, chaired by Scott Raynovich, Chief Technology Analyst, Futuriom will feature, among other leading names, Amir Khan of Alkira. Also taking part is Galeal Zino CEO of NetFoundry, Plus Kevin Deierling of NVIDIA.

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