BroadWare's financing fuels its move into new markets

CUPERTINO, Calif.-- BroadWare Technologies, a provider of distributed video surveillance, secured a new round of funding led by venture capital investor Kinetic Ventures in mid-June. The round, valued at $7.2 million, includes new funding from corporate investor Cisco Systems, as well as additional investments from venture capital firms Dali Hook Partners, McKenna Ventures and Sigma Partners. The financing allows the company "to expand more aggressively into new markets," according Bill Stuntz, chief executive officer of BroadWare, and fuels new product development for that initiative. After traditionally focusing on the government and military markets, Stuntz said the company's plans center on moving into the enterprise and commercial sectors. "We think that those markets have been looking pretty hard at the changes in the market and are now at a place to start spending and putting these new systems in," he said. The increased interest from the mid- to high-end commercial customers was a reason the company made the move to expand at this juncture. One reason behind this is these types of customers are showing an increased interest in surveillance technologies, such as BroadWare's, because they are concerned with protecting employees, as well as physical assets. Stuntz said the financing was oversubscribed by several million dollars. "We were going out for a couple million dollars and then more people were interested in getting into the investment," Stuntz said. "The security industry is a growing area and people have started to investigate it more."