As We Went To Press… Azanda Caps Series B At $33M

Azanda Network Devices today will announce that it has closed its Series B funding round with a total of $33 million. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company held a $19 million first close in March (See PE Week 3/11/02), a $7 million second close in April and the final $7 million piece earlier this month.

Investors involved on the final tranche include 75 Wall Street Technology Partners, Parker Price Venture Capital and China Development Industrial Bank. Previous investors included Bessemer Venture Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Goldman Sachs and Highland Capital Partners. Since being founded in March 2000, the company has raised $43 million.

The fables semiconductor company has developed a new silicon technology that allows OEMs to upgrade the datapath processing capabilities of legacy optical line cards without significant service disruptions. The company’s flagship Scimitar product recently signed up Siemens subsidiary Seabridge Ltd. as one of its first customers.

To be sure, the fabless semiconductor sector has been a summer favorite for VCs, both here and abroad. Just last month, United Kingdom-based Synad, a fabless chip start-up focused on wireless networking, raised $20.7 million in its second round funding exercise. The investment was led by Alta Partners of San Francisco and Alta Berkeley of London. And in June, Israel-based Oplus Technologies Ltd. raised a $6.5 million Series B round from Defta Partners, which operates in the U.S., Israel, United Kingdom and Japan.