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§ Private Profile · Santa Clara, CA, USA
cloud and SDN company providing network visibility and automated data center switching solutions for enterprise and cloud customers.
Based in Santa Clara, California, Big Switch Networks developed cloud-first software-defined networking solutions that provided automated data center switching and network security visibility across public, private, and multi-cloud environments. Prior to its strategic acquisition, the enterprise software provider scaled its operations to approximately 200 employees while raising $124.45 million in total venture funding across multiple financing rounds to support its hardware and software development. The company secured financial backing from a syndicate of prominent institutional investors, including Khosla Ventures and Index Ventures. Its core networking platforms, Big Cloud Fabric and Big Monitoring Fabric, were utilized by major corporate customers such as Verizon and Intuit before the business was ultimately acquired and integrated by Arista Networks in the first quarter of 2020. Big Switch Networks was founded in 2010 by Kyle Forster and Guido Appenzeller.
Big Switch Networks has raised $158.2M across 7 funding rounds.
Big Switch Networks has raised $158.2M in total across 7 funding rounds.
Big Switch Networks was a technology company specializing in next-generation data center networking solutions based on software-defined networking (SDN) principles.[1][2] It developed two core products: Big Cloud Fabric (BCF), a flexible switching fabric supporting OpenStack, VMware, containers, and big data workloads on industry-standard hardware, and Big Monitoring Fabric (BMF), a network packet broker for pervasive security, monitoring, and visibility across data centers and clouds.[1][2][3] These addressed enterprise needs for automated, scalable networking in on-premises, public, and multi-cloud environments, serving large organizations by reducing costs, boosting agility, and enabling hyperscale-like efficiency.[2][5] The company demonstrated strong growth through deployments in mainstream enterprises before its acquisition by Arista Networks in 2020, after which BCF was rebranded as Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF).[4]
Founded in 2010, Big Switch Networks emerged from the original Stanford research team that pioneered software-defined networking (SDN).[2] The idea stemmed from applying hyperscale data center principles—open hardware, SDN software on x86 servers and switches—to enterprise networking, decoupling control from hardware for flexibility and automation.[3][5] Early traction came from mature products like BMF, deployed in production for network packet brokering, and BCF, which gained momentum through partnerships with vendors like Dell EMC and Nutanix, proving viability in enterprise-scale environments.[4][5]
Big Switch rode the SDN and cloud-native networking wave, bringing hyperscale designs (e.g., leaf-spine topologies) to enterprises amid the shift to multi-cloud and containerized workloads in the 2010s.[1][3][5] Timing was ideal as data centers scaled for big data, virtualization, and OpenStack adoption, where legacy networking struggled with rigidity and visibility gaps—BCF/BMF filled this by automating fabrics and monitoring at cloud speeds.[2][4] Market forces like rising multi-cloud complexity and security needs favored its open, disaggregated approach, influencing the ecosystem through integrations (e.g., Nutanix, Dell) and paving the way for modern fabrics like Arista's CCF, which now supports Network-as-a-Service models.[4][5]
Post-2020 acquisition, Big Switch's technology lives on within Arista Networks as Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF), evolving with AI-driven networking, zero-trust security, and edge-to-cloud automation.[4] Trends like generative AI workloads and 5G/edge computing will amplify demand for its scalable, telemetry-rich fabrics, potentially expanding Arista's enterprise share against rivals like Cisco or VMware. Its legacy underscores SDN's triumph, influencing a shift toward open, programmable networks—watch for CCF integrations in sovereign clouds and telco environments to redefine hybrid infrastructure. This SDN pioneer proves how academic roots can disrupt trillion-dollar data center markets.[2][3]
Big Switch Networks has raised $158.2M across 7 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $30.7M Other Equity in July 2017.
Big Switch Networks has raised $158.2M in total across 7 funding rounds.
Big Switch Networks's investors include Dell Technologies Capital, Mike Volpi, Intel Capital, Khosla Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, MSD Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Silver Lake Waterman, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Greylock, Hanabi Capital.