SAN JOSE, Calif. — October 16, 2019 — Pensando Systems, the company pioneering the new edge services model of enterprise and cloud computing, today emerged from stealth to unveil its flagship distributed software-defined platform that can transform legacy architectures into next-generation clouds without costly added investment or disruption. Concurrently, the company announced that Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lightspeed Venture Partners have led a Series C round to raise up to $145 million in funding. This will bring the total amount raised to $278 million after an earlier founder-led series A round of $71 million, and a customer-led series B round of $62 million.

The Pensando platform delivers highly programmable software-defined cloud, compute, networking, storage and security services wherever data is located. This unique capability means that cloud providers can now gain a technological advantage over the current market leader, Amazon Web Services Nitro, delivering 5-9x improvements in productivity, performance and scale when compared to current architectures with no risk of lock-in.

In addition, existing enterprises can transform their current infrastructure into a cloud-like environment, eliminating multiple legacy appliances, improving operational simplicity and security while at the same time delivering never before seen functionality, performance, cost, scale and observability.

Pensando is the first secure, programmable, edge-accelerated platform that directly addresses the generational shift occurring as data pushes to the edge of the cloud. The foundation of the Pensando platform is a custom, fully-programmable processor optimized to execute a software stack delivering cloud, compute, networking, storage and security services wherever data is located. This unique combination is built to address the requirements of next-generation cloud infrastructure, providing:

• 5-9x current industry-leading performance, scalability, latency and jitter
• Software-defined services, always-on, wherever you need them
• Enterprise-grade security everywhere
• End-to-end telemetry and deep observability across the entire infrastructure
• Centrally-managed, automated control of all policies and lifecycle management via the Venice or custom/third-party controllers
• 1/3 power usage of existing solutions

“The team behind Pensando has worked together for more than twenty-five years and have an unmatched track record of disruptive innovation,” said John Chambers, Chairman of Pensando, CEO of JC2 Ventures and former CEO of Cisco Systems. “We are enabling a broad range of ecosystem partners and customers including cloud, enterprises, SP’s and technology companies to deploy cloud architectures that give them the ability to compete in the next big market transition as the world goes multi-cloud. Put together, it’s no wonder that Pensando is coming out of the gate with a marquis list of investors, partners, and customers. This team is an execution machine that has never missed.”

“Advances in emerging technologies such as 5G, IoT, and AI, are accelerating data growth and changing not just how we consume data but where we consume it. Computing is migrating to where the data is,” said Prem Jain, CEO of Pensando. “New deployment models driven by this shift are no longer just about moving workloads to the cloud but moving scalable services closer to data, regardless of where it resides. This tectonic change is breaking existing infrastructure and requires an entirely new, future-proof architecture designed for the next generation of the cloud. Pensando is the answer: we are democratizing the cloud with the first software-defined, edge-accelerated, always secure and visible platform that will run in any environment.”

“The future belongs to those who are first to harness the power of data,” said Antonio Neri, President and CEO, HPE. “Today, customers leverage HPE edge centric, cloud enabled and data driven solutions to harness the power of that data to bring insights and innovation across their distributed enterprise. The combination of HPE software defined compute, storage, networking, security services with Pensando technology will equip HPE’s customers with ways to act fast on a continuous stream of data that grows richer every day.”

The Pensando Edge Services Platform — Powering Enterprise Computing

5G, IoT, AI, and massive application growth are transforming the way modern enterprises operate, from manufacturing to warehouses and logistics to delivering services to end users. By 2025 upwards of 75% of enterprise data will be created and processed at the edge, according to Gartner, creating significant challenges for existing infrastructure. This change is driving modern data centers to a scale out approach and will also require scale-out services.

Pensando is the first secure, programmable, edge-accelerated platform that directly addresses the generational shift occurring as data pushes to the edge of the cloud. The foundation of the Pensando platform is a custom, programmable processor optimized to execute a software stack delivering cloud, compute, networking, storage and security services wherever data is located, all managed via the Venice Centralized Policy and Services Controller:

• Naples 100 and Naples 25 — Easily installed in standard servers, the Naples Distributed Services Card (DSC) delivers high-performance cloud, compute, networking, storage and security functions, eliminating an assortment of discrete appliances throughout the data center. The result delivers cloud-like capabilities and scalability with operational simplicity.
  • Software-defined services, right where you need them: highly-customizable distributed infrastructure — across cloud, compute, networking, storage, security, and virtual appliances — empowers businesses to easily compete in the next big market transition
  • Edge-acceleration, wherever data exists: scales out linearly with any server environment and minimizes latency and jitter while freeing up expensive hardware resources like general-purpose CPU cycles
  • Runs on anything, anywhere: compatible with virtualized or bare-metal servers as well as containerized workloads
• Venice — Centrally-managed enterprise-grade security and unmatched visibility at every level of the stack enables seamless distribution of all infrastructure services policies to active Naples nodes. In addition, Venice handles lifecycle management such as deploying in-service software upgrades to Naples nodes and delivers always-on telemetry, deep end-to-end observability, and operational simplicity across the environment.

“From day one, everything we do from product development to go-to-market has been focused on the success of our customers and partners” said Soni Jiandani, Pensando co-founder and Chief Business Officer. “Today’s announcement, with 6 leading customers, investors and partners is a testament to our commitment to successful customer outcomes, it is in the DNA of our company”.

Pensando empowers cloud providers to compete with Amazon Web Services

Cloud providers have entered a new realm when it comes to customer requirements, accountability and availability: cloud infrastructure now serves as the backbone for countless businesses, government agencies, and global enterprises. As cloud infrastructure growth continues to accelerate — driven by customers increasing adoption of hybrid cloud architectures — the performance, scalability and functionality demands on cloud providers will grow exponentially.

The Pensando Edge Services Platform provides a highly optimized programmable suite of software-defined cloud, compute, networking, storage, security, and telemetry services. The Pensando DSC operates at 100G wire-speed with high-performance, low-latency, low-jitter, and the highest levels of scalability, designed by and for the largest cloud providers. A key value of the Pensando DSC is not only the comprehensive number of services offered simultaneously, but also in the ability to chain disparate services together in any order, without loss of performance at 100Gbps, and with almost zero jitter.

• Gives cloud providers the ability to compete on a level playing field with Amazon Web Services
• Deep visibility and policy-based services management at scale, all managed via open APIs
• Distributed secure edge, wire-speed encryption, and hardware isolation
• Future-proofing with P4 programmability that supports the development and delivery of new services and protocols
• A reduction in CPU usage of 20-40%, enabling more revenue per server with less power consumption

Pensando is the logical choice for forward-thinking enterprises

• Eliminates the need for legacy appliances including firewalls, load balancers, encryption devices, and more
• Powers software-defined services at every node with cloud performance
• Creates simple datacenter architectures that integrate with existing frameworks and feature always-on, end-to-end telemetry and centralized security policy management
• Guarantees security — inherited from existing infrastructure — and compliance for all traffic, scaling across every host
• Hosting model agnostic empowering enterprises to rapidly deploy new services

“Goldman Sachs is significantly simplifying our data center architecture and reducing expenses with Pensando,” said Joshua Matheus, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. “Pensando allows us to secure our east-west data center traffic while ensuring compliance, and at the same time, with improved telemetry, we reduce our time-to-problem resolution from hours to minutes.”

Pensando fuels service providers

• Network slicing and best-in-class scale, latency, and jitter means lightning fast service
• Fully-distributed firewall, load-balancing, and SDN services — along with centralized policy automation — enable the deployment of 5G services at scale
• Terminating and encrypting one billion IoT connections can be done in only half a rack of servers
• Service providers can future-proof with P4 programmability and support the development of new services and protocols
• Reduce capital expenditures and power consumption

For more information or to schedule a demo, please visit www.pensando.io.

About Pensando Systems

Founded in 2017, Pensando Systems is pioneering distributed computing designed for the New Edge, powering software-defined cloud, compute, networking, storage and security services to transform existing architectures into the secure, ultra-fast environments demanded by next generation applications. The Pensando platform, a first of its kind, was developed in collaboration with the world’s largest cloud, enterprise, storage, and telecommunications leaders and is supported by partnerships with HPE, NetApp, Equinix, and multiple Fortune 500 customers. Pensando is led by Silicon Valley’s legendary “MPLS” team — Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero, Soni Jiandani and Randy Pond — who have an unmatched track record of disruptive innovation having already built 8 $Bn/Year businesses across storage, switching, routing, wireless, voice/video/data, & software-defined networking. The company is backed by investors that include Goldman Sachs and JC2 Ventures. For more information, please visit www.pensando.io.

About Lightspeed

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 350 companies globally, including Snap, Nest, Nutanix, AppDynamics, MuleSoft, OYO, Pinduoduo, Guardant, StitchFix, and GrubHub. Lightspeed currently manages $7.9B across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, and China. www.lsvp.com