DriveNets is a networking company that designs and sells infrastructure 16.07.25 AT&T buys $650M stake in DriveNets, delivering major payout to founders, employees and early backers. Calcalist. to telecommunications providers, networks, and organizations building AI systems, including hyperscaler organizations and NeoClouds (GPU-as-a-Service providers). Linda Hardesty (August 17, 2022). DriveNets secures $262M in Series C funding. Fierce Telecom. Products include a networking operating system running on a White box, and an Ethernet-based AI Fabric used for backend, compute, and storage networks.
History DriveNets was founded in 2015 by Ido Susan and Hillel Kobrinsky. Susan is the co-founder of Intucell, which he sold to Cisco for $475 million in 2013.Alyson Shontell (January 23, 2013). Cisco Buys 4-Year-Old Israeli Startup Intucell For Half A Billion Dollars. Business Insider. Kobrinsky co-founded Interwise, which was acquired by AT&T for $121 million.Shmulik Shelah (October 1, 2007). AT&T buys Israeli web-conferencing co Interwise. Globes. DriveNets was in a stealth modeIngrid Lunden (February 14, 2019). DriveNets emerges from stealth with $110M for its cloud-based alternative to network routers. TechCrunch. and was self-funded until 2019.(February 15, 2019). Israeli Software Firm DriveNets Raises $110 Million in First Round of Financing. Reuters/ Haaretz. In 2019, DriveNets raised $110 million in series A round from Bessemer Venture Partners and Pitango Growth, along with John W. Thompson and Stephen J. Luczo.(July 8, 2019). DriveNets expands financing round to $117m. Globes. In 2021, DriveNets raised $208 million in series B funding led by D1 Capital Partners with follow-on investments from Bessemer and Pitango and investment by Harel Insurance.Meir Orbach (January 27, 2021). DriveNets raises $208 million in series B round, attains unicorn status. Calcalist. In August 2022, DriveNets announced it completed Series C funding of $262 million led by D2 Investments, along with former investors Bessemer, D1 Capital, Pitango, Atreides Management, and Harel Insurance.Ingrid Lunden (August 17, 2022). DriveNets connects with $262M as demand booms for its cloud-based alternative to network routers. TechCrunch. In 2025, AT&T acquired a 15% stake (approximately $750 million) in shares from DriveNets' employees and investors. The company's estimated value in 2025 was $5 billion. Assaf Gilead (8 Oct, 2025) AT&T buys 15% stake in DriveNets. Globes.
The company has approximately 100 customers, including AT&T Omri Zerachovitz (September 29, 2020). AT&T deploys DriveNets core routing solution. Globes. Comcast, Dan Meyer (May 23, 2025). DriveNets wants to upend network cost structures. SDxCentral. and KDDI.Ruti Levy (August 17, 2022). Valued more than 2 billion dollars, Susan and Kobrinsky DriveNets', raised 262 million dollars in a series C funding round. TheMarker. Among its partners are Fujitsu, Broadcom Inc.,(August 17, 2022). Israel's DriveNets raises $262 million in new funding round. Reuters. Itochu Techno-Solutions, Wipro, EPCglobal,(August 17, 2022). Israeli networking software co DriveNets raises $262m. Globes. and Accton. Matt Kapko (February 14, 2022). DriveNets CEO Claims 65% Win Rate Against Cisco, Juniper, Nokia. SDxCentral. The company has 500 employees with offices in Israel, the USA, Japan, and Romania.Idan Ben Tovim (August 17, 2022). No crisis here: This Israeli startup has raised more than a quarter billion dollars. Geektime. In November 2023, DriveNets joined the Ultra Ethernet Consortium, an industry initiative aimed at developing optimal Ethernet for high-performance networking.
Products DriveNets has two product lines - Network Cloud and Network Cloud-AI. Both are based on a Disaggregated, modular network architecture deployed on commodity white box hardware. The company’s Network Cloud product line is a cloud-native software-based solution that applies the architectural model of cloud shared infrastructure to communication service providers' networking, for a range of network use cases – from the core to peering to aggregation and to the edge, Hyperscalers want to replace Infiniband with Ethernet – Here’s why. Fierce Network provisioned as microservices and containers. Choosing InfiniBand or Ethernet? Ethernet-based AI Networking to grow at over 100% CAGR. The company’s Ethernet-based GPU-to-GPU networking fabric product line is planned for hyperscalers and enterprises as a scalable replacement for InfiniBand in GPU cluster interconnections.Cisco’s Acacia adopts DriveNets' Network Cloud
Technology DriveNets furnishes a network operating system (NOS) designed for cloud-native infrastructuresDriveNets revamps Ethernet to connect AI megaclusters in the cloud. for building networks.DriveNets claims its Network-Cloud AI accelerates Ethernet, connects up to 32K GPUs. SDXCentral The Network Cloud architecture provides a software-based routing framework that allows networks to scale linearly and predictably.DriveNets Brings its Network Cloud to AI Data Centers. Network Computing The company has built software that runs on white boxes. Why Network Value is Heating Up in an Increasingly Digital World. This network virtualization to a shared infrastructure AT&T champions DriveNets cloud networking software. creates a single, software-based entity. The company’s approach disaggregates the network, decoupling the control plane software from hardware. The disaggregated networking model is based on Open Compute Project (OCP) distributed Disaggregated Chassis (DDC) and Telecom Infra Project DDBR frameworks. What AI Means For Networking Infrastructure In 2024. Forbes. In 2023, it introduced an AI infrastructure networking platform, Network Cloud-AI, Open Computer Project. based on Fabric Scheduled Ethernet (FSE). Fabric Scheduled Ethernet provides direct GPU connectivity in an architecture that uses standard Ethernet connections toward the client side but implements a hardware-based, cell-based scheduled fabric system to ensure predictable, lossless performance. DriveNets Brings its Network Cloud to AI Data Centers In November 2023, DriveNets joined the Ultra Ethernet Consortium to build an Ethernet Fabric for high-performance networking.
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