One of Orange County’s best-funded startups said Wednesday it plans to buy a Silicon Valley-based company.
Irvine-based Solarflare Communications Inc., which has raised about $80 million in venture funds since its first funding in 2001, said it signed a deal to acquire Sunnyvale-based Level 5 Networks Inc.
The combined companies have $50 million in cash. No other financial details were released.
Solarflare Chief Executive Russell Stern will head the combined company, which will be based in Irvine. Level 5 will keep development centers in Sunnyvale and in its Cambridge, England, offices.
The company will be known as Solarflare. Venture capital firms invested an undisclosed amount in the company as part of the deal.
The investors included Westport, Conn.-based Oak Investment Partners LP, Corona del Mar’s Miramar Venture Partners and Santa Monica-based Anthem Venture Partners, past investors in Solarflare.
Solarflare makes chips for switches, devices that direct the flow of data on a network.
The chips are designed to make smaller-capacity networks interact with heftier ones at data transfer speeds of about 10 gigabits per second, much faster than the standard two gigabits per second. That allows businesses to upgrade, rather than replace, networks.
Level 5 designs software and Ethernet network interface cards and chip devices for servers.
