CHICAGO—Cambia Networks, which provided high-end data networking infrastructure products for wireless carriers, shut down late last month.
Cambia officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
The company launched in August 2000 with $11 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital, Skymoon Ventures and Eagle Technology Ventures. At the time, Cambia said it would offer an open architecture data communications platform to connect wireless networks to Internet protocol data networks and sell a carrier-class data gateway solution for the global CDMA and GSM markets.
Late last year Leap Wireless selected Cambia’s Mobile Data Server as a network platform to test high-speed data applications on its existing CDMA network. Leap officials were not immediately available for comment on Cambia’s shutdown.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Cambia ran out of money late last month. The company’s board decided to shut the company down after a potential acquirer indicated it would not be able to seal the deal in time to save the company.
“We brought three products to market in a year and a half,” said Andrew Bezaitis, the company’s founder and chief executive officer, according to the Chicago Tribune. “We generated revenue starting last year. It was milestone after milestone, but it just wasn’t enough.”
In May last year 3Com Corp. filed a lawsuit against Cambia, Bezaitis and two Cambia co-founders, alleging they violated the Illinois Trade Secrets Act and breached non-disclosure agreements. The lawsuit, which is pending in Cook County Circuit Court, charges that the three managers worked on a wireless data technology 3Com was developing in 2000, and subsequently took the confidential information they gleaned from the project to start Cambia, a direct 3Com competitor.
