Meriton Networks scores US$54 million in VC financing

Ottawa-based Meriton Networks has secured US$54 million in series ‘C’ venture capital financing, the largest single VC deal so far this year in Canada. Meriton secured the financing from a VC syndicate led by VantagePoint Venture Partners, San Bruno CA and New York and Nomura International, Hong Kong. The syndicate includes seven Canadian VC firms that invested in Meriton in earlier financing rounds — Primaxis Technology Ventures, Desjardins Venture Capital Group, Newbury Ventures, RBC Capital Partners, Sierra Ventures, VenGrowth and Venture Coaches/ Skypoint Capital. The funding will go towards marketing and R&D and the firm will double its workforce to 120 within two years. Meriton makes optical networking equipment geared towards the consumer market and recently was part of a US$19-billion contract from British Telecom won by Japan’s Fujitsu Telecommunications. Its advantage lies with its high-speed metro network architecture that uses software allowing telecom carriers to make the transition to converged networks without changing cards or dispatching technical crews. Meriton was founded in 2000 and previously raised $46 million….