Pente Networks™, developer of IT-friendly private enterprise LTE/5G solutions for service providers and end customers, today announced a $10 million Series A funding round led by INcapital Ventures, with the participation of other notable private investors including existing investor Magma Ventures and Global Brain.
The new capital follows a seed round and brings Pente’s total investment to date to over $15 million. The company also announced it has established a North American headquarters in Hackensack, New Jersey, U.S.A., and is expanding its original headquarters in Israel.
Avi Cohen has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer, after co-founding and driving the growth of LiveU, where he most recently served as Chief Operating Officer. LiveU grew from a start-up established in 2006 to a global leader in the IoT live video streaming for TV, mobile, online, and social media content with more than 5,000 customers in over 150 countries.
“Given the success of our solution, the quality of the leadership team, the rapid growth of our global partner ecosystem, the demand forecast by industry experts and analysts, and the support of our board, Pente is well positioned to expand and leverage the rapidly growing 5G market,” Cohen said. “I am truly honored and excited to join an amazing crew whose vision, determination and talents will continue to drive a bigger and more meaningful business.”
“We are excited to back Pente Networks and support the company’s rapid growth,” said Inbar Haham, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at INcapital Ventures “Pente’s deep technology solutions are impressive, successfully filling a need in the market for user friendly 5G private networks. We have high confidence in the leadership team of Pente and their ability to drive the company forward to a market leadership position.”
“Pente’s potential is limitless as enterprises continue to select private cellular networking in an increasingly 5G world,” said Naoki Kamimaeda, Partner and Europe Division Head, Global Brain. “Given the leadership team’s experience, talent, and commitment, and the benefits of Pente’s software-based solution, we are confident Pente will continue to attract world-class partners, system integrators, and distributors and look forward to helping them accelerate growth in Asia, Europe, and North America.”
Jonathan Schwartz has been named Chief Technical Officer, a role he has been playing since the inception of the company,
Roy Timor-Rousso has been named Chief Marketing Officer, driving many of the company’s strategies in the Americas, including Latin America, as well as in Europe, Asia, and other regions.
Working with MVNOs, WISPs, MSPs and SIs, Pente has been augmenting and replacing traditional enterprise networks with simplified, ultra-fast and ultra-secure wireless broadband solutions, including CBRS, as the use of unlicensed spectrum becomes more readily available.
The massive shift in fixed and wireless access and communications, including the simplification of high-speed, highly secure private networks and the related reduction of complexity and costs compared to legacy approaches, is dramatically reshaping the competitive landscape, and opening new opportunities for challengers to bring better solutions to market compared to legacy approaches.
Pente will continue to expand its core technology dev team in Israel, while focusing on strategy, business development, customer success, sales, and marketing in the U.S., given its successes in the North American region.
The company is actively recruiting talented sales, pre-sales engineering, customer success, and marketing professionals based in the U.S., while also deepening its ecosystem of technology, integration, and sales channel partners.
About Pente Networks
Pente provides an enterprise grade LTE/5G Mobile Core & Management Platform. Established in 2015, the company is headquartered in Israel and the U.S., with R&D centers in Israel, India, and Eastern Europe. With deep knowledge of telecom and enterprise solutions and experience in building networks and business applications for dozens of enterprises and mobile operators, Pente has a growing partner ecosystem with leading system integrators, service providers, and equipment manufacturers focused on delivering end-to-end, wireless communications solutions to enterprises.
Pente’s IT-friendly solutions feature guaranteed latency, security, and quality of experience, optimizing public and private clouds to deliver fully secure and economically efficient services designed to support enterprise digital transformation.
Learn more at https://pentenetworks.com.
INcapital Ventures focuses on investing in early-growth stage B2B technology companies primarily from Israel. The fund has offices in Toronto, NYC, and Tel Aviv.
The fund is anchored by a Canadian family office and backed by prominent institutional and private investors mainly from North America. The managing partners of the fund take an active role with portfolio companies, utilizing their operating experience and global network to help them scale in North America.
The fund supports founders in areas such as: capital raising, business development and go to market strategy. So far, the fund has made investments into 9 companies across various sectors in series A and B financing rounds.
Learn more at https://incapitalvc.com/.
Magma Venture Partners is a leading Israeli venture capital firm, dedicated to investing in Israel’s Information, Communications and Technology space (‘ICT’), including the software, semiconductor and new media spheres. We seek bright ideas at their earliest stages, and serve as a springboard for our entrepreneurs as they develop and evolve into industry leaders. Our goal is to enable a flow of innovation from the earliest stage all the way through until a company realizes its potential reach.
Magma’s partners provide decades of hands-on entrepreneurial and managerial experience in the ‘ICT’ field. We are committed to working with outstanding entrepreneurs who develop cutting-edge technologies locally, and together, spreading them globally towards becoming category leaders. Magma’s partners connect industry experts and investors to support entrepreneurs as they build successful companies that disrupt and redefine ICT’s future.
Magma Venture Partners prides itself in being a true partner for innovation.
Learn more at https://www.magmavc.com/.
Global Brain supports startups that tackle various problems and create innovation. Our professionals with high achievement and extensive experience discover excellent startups through our multiple global locations and provide growth support through hands-on. The total assets under management is more than 150 billion yen (over $1 billion USD) making Global Brain the largest domestic independent venture capital firm.
Learn more at https://globalbrains.com/.
