Wireless LAN vendor Meru Networks has secured $12 million in new venture funding.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., vendor of wireless LAN switches has so far reaped $42.7 million in backing. With the new funds, Meru will increase staffing for sales, channel efforts, and product engineering.

This third round was led by three current investors, BlueStream Ventures, Clearstone Venture Partners and NeoCarta Ventures. Other investors are: Evercore Ventures, BrainHeart Capital, JumpStartUp Venture Fund, Monitor Ventures and Dot Edu Ventures.

Meru, as are many WLAN switch vendors, is focusing on positioning wireless LANs as the infrastructure for enterprise VoIP. The company recently announced that three network equipment vendors had selected Meru as the foundation for their VoIP offerings.

The additional funding comes not long after Cisco's half-billion-dollar acquisition of WLAN switch rival Airespace, and days after WLAN pioneer Proxim threw in the towel and was acquired by Moseley Associates. Meru's backers still seem confident that the wireless LAN market will continue to grow aggressively in the enterprise market.