With established players nipping its heels, Maranti's up against it, challenged to get customers to take a chance on an integrated solution from a startup that might not be around in the long term. And it has no paying customers -- despite claims to the contrary from cofounder and VP of marketing Harish Nayak two months ago (see Maranti Makes It to Market). Maranti now says the customer that Nayak formerly claimed was a paying customer is in reality one of five beta customers. Miller expects paying customers by the end of this quarter.
It's not the first time Maranti's had to backpedal on claims. It originally boasted of plans to release its first product in October 2002 but wound up hit with development delays and a layoff instead.
Now, at 70 employees, Miller says things have settled down. The new funding, which she says will bring the company to profitability, will be used to build up Maranti's sales and marketing staff, including a direct sales force that will target financial services companies until Maranti has a large enough installed base to attract channel partners.
As to the current volatility in the switch market, Miller says that could actually work to Maranti's advantage. This is a great time not to have an installed base, she says. Our technology is disruptive to others who dont have our advanced features... We're in a revenue-generating, customer-producing stage.
Miller joins Maranti after serving as CEO of well-funded utility computing startup Egenera Inc.
until last February, when she announced she was stepping down because she no longer wanted to split time between her California home and Egeneras Marlborough, Mass., headquarters (see Egenera Generates $30 Million). She has also held executive management jobs at IBM, Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) (NYSE: SGI),
and Digital Equipment Corp.
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