The company is still in customer trials and has yet to name any of the carriers it’s working with, but Matisse Networks, the first and only company to market with an optical burst switch, has raised $45 million, bringing the total capital raised by the vendor to $80 million. New investor Merrill Lynch PCG contributed $35 million of the new funds, with existing investors Menlo Ventures, Monitor Ventures, Walden International and Woodside Fund contributing the rest.

    The ability of Matisse to raise this kind of money exhibits the financial community’s understanding of the need for new and affordable solutions in the Ethernet/optical realm and the fact that existing optical suppliers have produced so little innovation on this front, said Sam Mathan, chairman and CEO of Matisse.

    Optical burst switching for the first time packetizes traffic over the photonic layer, explains Mark Showalter, director of product marketing. And it’s 50 percent the cost in terms of capex and opex versus the traditional way of transporting Ethernet over optics, he added, because optical burst switching requires half the transponders and half the router ports needed in ROADM deployments. “That’s the kind of stuff that gets carriers’ attention,” he said.

    According to Infonetics Research, the Matisse EtherBurst solution addresses the worldwide metro WDM market segment, which is forecast to grow at a 19 percent compound annual growth rate to $4 billion through 2010.

    Matisse announced its company and products last year at this time and made its gear generally available at the end of 2006. Although the company is still in trials with as-yet-unnamed carriers, Mathan said he expects the new funding to keep the company afloat until it reached profitability, which is expected in 2009.