Crescendo Networks nabs $5 million

It’s a tough time to secure venture funding, but application acceleration vendor Crescendo Networks just landed another $5 million to further its sales expansion.

In addition, Adoram Ga’ash, the company’s cofounder and CEO, has relocated to Menlo Park, Calif., where Crescendo’s corporate headquarters is now located. Engineering and corporate operations remain in Tel Aviv, Israel, the company says.

Crescendo makes products for accelerating and optimizing Web applications. Its lineup includes AppBeat DC application delivery controllers for accelerating Web applications; AppBeat SC for monitoring and controlling application performance at the transaction level; and Maestro, a hardware platform that scales up to 10 Gbps throughput.

Crescendo has attracted more than $45 million in investment over the past seven years. This latest round of financing was led by Trilogy Equity Partners, a venture capital firm based in Bellevue, Wash. Existing investors Evergreen Venture Partners, Apax Partners, StageOne Ventures and Challenge Fund also participated in the round.

“As the IT world experiences a paradigm shift in the way applications are delivered, data centers are incorporating cloud computing, SaaS and virtualization as part of modern web application infrastructures. We believe Crescendo Networks’ application delivery solutions are perfectly poised to capitalize on these expanding market opportunities,” said Peter van Oppen of Trilogy Equity Partners (who is joining Crescendo’s board of directors) in a statement.

In the big picture, Crescendo’s funding comes at a time when the venture industry is showing some signs of rebounding.

After a rough first quarter, the value of venture capital investments grew 15% in the second quarter of this year. VCs invested $3.7 billion in 612 deals in Q2, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. In Q1, $3.2 billion was invested in 603 deals, the firms report.

Those behind the MoneyTree Report say they expect to see investments levels for the full year approach the pace of 1997, before the Internet bubble: “Based upon the $6.9 billion invested during the first half of 2009, the annual total for the full year will most likely mirror the venture investing levels seen in 1996 and 1997 when annual investment levels ranged from $11 billion to $14 billion.”

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.