BPL Solutions Provider Asoka Gets $7 Million in Venture Capital, Appoints New CEO

$7M Jolt for Broadband-Over-Power-Line Firm
04 October 2007, 12:18
by Ken Schachter

Broadband over power line equipment maker Asoka USA has hired a new chief executive and reeled in $7 million in venture capital from Venrock Associates and Storm Ventures, the company said Thursday.

Dano Ybarra succeeded founder T.K. Chan as chief executive of the 6-year-old company which until now had been bootstrapped.

Mr. Ybarra has worked in executive, operations and marketing roles at Netopia, FlowPoint, Efficient Netwoks, Siemens and Adobe.

Broadband over power line, or BPL, has been touted for years as a potential rival to Internet services delivered by cable and telecom companies, but U.S. electric companies have yet to roll out the offering to a mass market.

In May, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, an industry group, said more than nine million power line communications devices had been shipped by members worldwide. With BPL, Internet service is delivered via standard electrical lines into homes and businesses.

Google, Goldman Sachs, Duke Energy, General Electric and others have lavished more than $130 million in venture capital on leading U.S. BPL provider Current Group, but that company’s footprint remains limited to the Dallas/Forth Worth and Cincinnati markets.

Asoka, with headquarters in Foster City, California, and research and development facilities in Shenzhen, China, offers equipment for home networking as well as gear that allows hotels and multi-tenant residential and commercial properties to make electrical outlets do double duty as Internet connections.

"Mr. Ybarra has demonstrated the ability to build teams capable of growing young companies into world leaders," Tae Hea Nahm of Storm Ventures said in a statement.