21 December 2021 - Issue 6312 pg. 5-6

Pentanet will become the second largest Canopus Networks shareholder behind IP Group following a $4m deal to buy a 13.4% stake in the network analytics company. The Pentanet investment will form part of a $10m Series A funding raise for Canopus.

Pentanet will fund the deal from its existing cash reserves. Pentanet managing director Stephen Cornish is expected to join the board of Canopus as a director following the deal’s completion, which is likely to be completed on or around 24 December. The deal includes a memorandum of understanding between Pentanet and Canopus to establish a strategic partnership, with $1.5m of Canopus funds to be invested in developing a consumer-facing gaming loyalty and reward program that will fully exploit Canopus’s real-time gaming analytics capability.

The move will further build out Pentanet’s existing Cloud.gg portal. Ahead of Pentanet’s local launch of Nvidia’s GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, Cloud.gg hosted “quests” to gather data from potential subscribers about usage patterns and infrastructure demand.

“Designed by Pentanet as a gamified rewards system, the platform will use the Canopus analytics for base network insight to offer a unique network loyalty and incentive program that will create additional recurring revenue-generating opportunities for the company,” a statement from Pentanet said.

“One of the beneβits of being at the forefront of telecommunications is having exposure to new industry changing technologies,” Cornish said. “I have seen the development and progress of Canopus for many years, and always thought the technology could be used to underpin the platform that will tie all of our business segments together via Cloud.GG.”

The Pentanet MD said that Canopus’s FlowPulse system “does for encrypted traffic on a network what Shazam does for music, offering deep visibility to identify and the opportunity to reward user activity.”

Cornish added: “Becoming a major stakeholder in Canopus is a huge opportunity for Pentanet, and enables the accelerated success of the Cloud.GG platform being fully ready for market.”

CANOPUS VIEW: Canopus founder and CEO Dr Vijay Sivaraman said: “Gaming is a significant market, reportedly three times larger than video streaming. It also has some interesting and challenging technical requirements for which Canopus is ideally suited. The strategic partnership and investment with Pentanet will mean that Canopus can fast track into the gaming space in a cutting-edge environment.” Speaking about the $10m raise, Sivaraman said: “Funds will be applied to further development of the Canopus platform in the gaming, enterprise and 5G mobile markets, while also driving international expansion.”

“We are excited to move to the next stage in the development of Canopus Networks with this funding round. Our AI-driven applications and network analytics software is providing encryption-proof, deep visibility in real time to Tier 1 carriers in Australia.

Based on the global feedback during this capital raise, we are conβident that our technology is disruptive and world-leading. We now look forward to expansion into 5G with a focus initially on the Asian and US markets.”

Rohan Pearce

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