World Wide Packets gets $25 million boost

Spokane Valley-based technology firm World Wide Packets received its holiday bonus in the form of $25.5 million in venture funding, the company announced Friday.

Two Seattle-area venture capital firms led this latest infusion of cash, one of the largest publicly announced investments in a Spokane firm made in recent years.

The money will help privately held World Wide Packets expand sales of its network management technology to telecommunications companies.

One of the two Seattle venture firms, Eagle River Holdings, LLC, is part of a group of closely held investment companies formed by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw, the founder of McCaw Cellular Communications.

The second Seattle venture capital firm is Rally Capital LLC. It was formed in 2005 and focuses on investments in the telecommunications industry.

While those two firms led the financing, previous investors in World Wide Packets, including Madrona Partners of Seattle, contributed additional money to the deal, said World Wide Packets CEO David Curry.

Curry would not disclose what stake the two venture capital firms will receive. Each gets to add a person to the company’s seven-member board.

“I’m really excited when I hear this kind of announcement,” said Bill Kalivas, executive director of Spokane-based Connect Northwest, a Spokane technology support association.

“It’s a sign of the maturation of Spokane’s telecom sector. Seattle and other investors are standing up and taking notice of what we have,” said Kalivas.

World Wide Packets has about 100 workers in its Spokane office and 35 elsewhere. Curry said the investment will help the company add about 15 more jobs.

It’s focusing more and more, he added, on selling to large telecom firms — cable companies and local carriers. Those large telecom firms are increasing their network options to handle the growing demand for “triple play” service, meaning voice, data and video, over their systems.

The telecom carriers are investing billions in fiber optic switching equipment, and companies like World Wide Packets provide products for that need, said Dennis Weibling, managing director of Rally Capital.

“We anticipate World Wide Packets’ ongoing success toward shaping the marketplace,” Weibling said in a press release Friday.

World Wide Packets was founded in 2000 by entrepreneur Bernard Daines and grew to more than 130 workers in Spokane. Then the telecom industry went through a severe down cycle and the company shrank to less than 70 people.

One key to surviving what Curry calls the “telecom winter” was the fact that World Wide Packets is based in Spokane, he added.

“If we had been in the Silicon Valley, this company probably wouldn’t still exist. Our best people would have left and gone to other companies.

“But in Spokane, our people didn’t have those choices. Spokane was the glue to keep this company going,” Curry said.