Arrcus accelerates momentum by announcing new CEO, vision, and strategic partners

News Summary

• Appoints Shekar Ayyar as new CEO, recently executive vice president and general manager of Telco and Edge Cloud business, VMware
• Unveils Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE)TM vision
• Announces Liberty Global, SoftBank Corp, and Samsung Next as new strategic investors and partners

SAN JOSE, Calif., September 15, 2021 – Arrcus, the hyperscale networking software company and a leader in edge infrastructure, today announced technology veteran Shekar Ayyar as its CEO and chairman of the board.

“Shekar is a passionate technology leader with a proven track record of translating strategy into execution and corralling high-performing teams to deliver results. On behalf of Arrcus employees and the board, I am excited to have him join us as our CEO at this important time,” said Keyur Patel, Founder and CTO, Arrcus. “We are confident in Shekar’s leadership to take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us and drive Arrcus forward as we enter the next phase of product innovation and growth.”

Shekar’s multi-decade career as a technology executive has spanned diverse roles across general management, strategy, M&A, business development, and research. He joins Arrcus from VMware where he was the executive vice president and general manager of the Telco and Edge Cloud business, enabling it to be one of the leading vertical businesses for the company. Shekar has also led VMware’s strategy and corporate development efforts in enterprise software and communications while overseeing over 60 M&A transactions and investments including the acquisitions of Nicira, AirWatch, and VeloCloud.

Several industries including content and media, telecommunications, retail, and financial services are struggling for need of agility and efficient management as their applications become more distributed and demanding. 5G and edge computing are accelerating the network infrastructure transformation requiring programmable and massively scalable, multi-cloud optimized, cost-effective connectivity for the next generation of distributed applications including remote work environments, industrial automation, and content distribution. The Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE) platform is powering this network transformation by enabling the convergence of communications and compute infrastructure at the edge, delivering massive network scale and performance, and enabling service providers and enterprises to create new services and deliver superior end-user experiences at a low total cost of ownership (TCO).

“I am delighted to be joining Arrcus as CEO at this inflection point in the industry when customers are seeking edge-native, large-scale distributed and disaggregated networking to support their 5G and edge deployments. The Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE) is uniquely positioned to provide network performance at scale, while delivering efficiently low TCO for enterprises and service providers,” said Shekar Ayyar, CEO, Arrcus.

“Service providers are under relentless pressure to modernize their networks to deliver new, innovative services at the edge while meeting stringent requirements for high bandwidth and low latency,” said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom. “At the time when carrier networks are going through this transformation, we are excited to see the Arrcus Connected Edge infrastructure leverage our StrataDNX family of switch SOCs, including Jericho2, Qumran2C, Jericho2C, and Qumran2A merchant silicon platforms to offer a flexible, high-performance, cost-optimized, low-power solution and address the challenging needs of the most demanding telco workloads.”

In addition, Arrcus is also excited to announce the infusion of new capital from its strategic partners – Liberty Global, SoftBank Corp and Samsung Next as they join the existing investors, Clear Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. This new capital enables Arrcus to expand its market reach and support its rapidly growing customer base.

Ankur Prakash, Partner, Liberty Global Ventures said – “As a strategic investment partner for Arrcus, we are excited to welcome Shekar Ayyar as the new CEO to enhance and accelerate the Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE) vision. Arrcus has emerged as a true market leader in global service providers and enterprises as communications converge with compute infrastructure layers.”

Adrian Drury, MD, Technology Strategy, Liberty Global said – “Arrcus Connected Edge with the underlying routing-centric architecture has a promising role to play in the evolution of our gigabit fixed networks and 5G mobile networks, enabling next generation edge computing services for our customers.”

“Arrcus has made rapid progress with its portfolio of networking software solutions whose compelling feature capabilities are widely applicable to us as we build future mobile networks,” said Keiichi Makizono, CIO, SoftBank Corp. “We are excited by its massive potential to significantly impact the communications infrastructure industry and are pleased to add Arrcus to our strategic portfolio of innovative companies.”

“Arrcus is blazing the trail with unprecedented innovation for the enterprise edge and 5G networks,” said Raymond Liao, MD, Samsung Next. “We are excited to be a strategic investor of Arrcus in this rapid communication industry transformation.”

Adrian Drury, MD, Technology Strategy, Liberty Global said – “Arrcus Connected Edge with the underlying routing-centric architecture has a promising role to play in the evolution of our gigabit fixed networks and 5G mobile networks, enabling next generation edge computing services for our customers.”

“Arrcus has made rapid progress with its portfolio of networking software solutions whose compelling feature capabilities are widely applicable to us as we build future mobile networks,” said Keiichi Makizono, CIO, SoftBank Corp. “We are excited by its massive potential to significantly impact the communications infrastructure industry and are pleased to add Arrcus to our strategic portfolio of innovative companies.”

“Arrcus is blazing the trail with unprecedented innovation for the enterprise edge and 5G networks,” said Raymond Liao, MD, Samsung Next. “We are excited to be a strategic investor of Arrcus in this rapid communication industry transformation.”

Availability
Arrcus Connected Edge platform with support for the edge use cases is generally available from Arrcus and partners for immediate deployment across multiple hardware form factors, scale, and port density.