6WIND, a high-performance networking software company announced that Cisco Investments has invested in 6WIND as part of Cisco's country digitization initiative announced in Paris last February to commit $100M to innovative French businesses. The announcement coincides with the visit between Cisco CEO John Chambers and CEO Designate Chuck Robbins, and French President Francois Hollande, in France this week.

The networking and telecom industries are undergoing a significant transformation due to huge volumes of data that necessitate advances with virtualization on standard servers through NFV (Network Function Virtualization) and SDN (Software-Defined Networking). As a result, the networking and telecom industries can realize similar benefits delivered from the Internet with Cloud Computing and Data Center Virtualization to stay competitive through cost savings, scalability and flexibility. With the transition to new generation architecture, it is critical to deploy the proper software on servers to ensure performance and functionality rivals legacy specialized equipment.

6WIND's Unique Software:

• Enables the network architecture transition by delivering the performance, features and network hardware independence required for virtual networking on standard servers, without changing the existing software infrastructure.
• Addresses broad market convergence across Service Providers, Data Centers and Enterprises.
• Is already deployed in critical applications for Blue Chip companies and achieves fast revenue growth with teams in the Americas, EMEA, APAC and China.

"We are proud to have Cisco, the largest networking company in the world, as an investor, which is a testament to the critical technology 6WIND provides to enable the transition to NFV and SDN," said Eric Carmes, CEO and Founder of 6WIND. "With this investment, we look forward to further advancing our technology innovation and world-wide growth to accelerate the networking and telecom industry transformation."

"6WIND's networking software enables a new paradigm of NFV and SDN use cases. 6WIND's fast growing number of design wins with key market players, including Cisco, exemplifies its strong added value for the telecom and networking industry," added Frederic Rombaut, Head of Cisco M&A and Investments International.