More Revenge of the South Bay: WiChorus acquired for $165
Not long after VMware paid $420 million for SprintSource, the Peninsula has another 9-digit exit by a company whose product description is probably unintelligible to the average Twitter user.
Network gear maker Tellabs has agreed to pay $165 million in net cash to buy WiChorus, maker of technology that connects mobile phones to the Internet in such a way that they seem like Internet Protocol, or IP devices.
Smart 4G Packet Core infrastructure technology, as it’s called, isn’t just router stuff. It also handles billing. But a big part of WiChorus’ appeal is the company’s A UBS analyst estimated the mobile core market for all this equipment could reach $2.6 billion in four years. WiChorus also tracks location. We last wrote about the company last year.
The success of a company like WiChorus validates Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s contempt for the term “the Cloud.” There’s a lot of serious hardware and software hiding in the Cloud, and a lot of money to be made by building that gear which users won’t know exists.
The company had received $43 million from four venture firms, Accel Partners, Mayfield Fund, Pinnacle Ventures and Redpoint Ventures
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About the Author, Paul Boutin
Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.