Drew D Perkins

Updated on Dec 26, 2023

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Name Drew Perkins

Education Carnegie Mellon University Organizations founded Infinera, OnFiber Communications, Lightera Similar David F Welch, Charles Chi, William Randolph Hearst III, Pradeep Sindhu, Vinod Khosla

Drew D. Perkins is a serial entrepreneur and is one of the lead authors of the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), an early internet technology that provided for access to the internet via the circuit-switched telephone system.

Perkins has founded or was a key early employee in at least 7 companies.

Entrepreneurial experience

Companies founded or materially developed by Perkins include:

Infinera, a public company which was co-founded by Perkins in 2001.

Gainspeed, which was sold to Nokia in 2016. Since it was founded in 2012, Gainspeed had raised $55 million in financing from investors including New Enterprise Associates, Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures, Technicolor, and Juniper Networks.

OnFiber Communications, which was sold to Qwest Communications for $107 million in cash in 2006. Other owners of Onfiber included Bear Stearns Merchant Banking (11%) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (30%).

Lightera Networks, which was acquired by Ciena in 1999 in exchange for 20.6 million shares in Ciena.

FORE Systems, where Perkins was the principal architect from 1993 to 1997. The company was sold in 1999 for $4.5 billion.

Investments

Perkins participated in a $5 million seed financing for RevUp Software in March 2016.

Perkins participated in a $26 million Series B financing for Console Inc. in November 2015.

Education

Perkins received bachelor of science degrees in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1986.

References

Drew D. Perkins Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

Contents

Entrepreneurial experience

Investments

Education

References