Features - Financial Plays Of The Week:

MAXXAN SYSTEMS SECURES $25 MILLION IN ADDITIONAL FUNDING

MaXXan Systems Inc, a leading developer of next-generation storage area networking infrastructure technology, has announced that it has closed on $25 million in additional equity financing. The new funding brings the total equity raised to date to more than $63 million. Including the previously announced $10 million equipment financing credit line the total amount of financing secured to date exceeds $73 million. MaXXan's current investors, U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock Associates, Lucent Venture Partners, Ironweed Capital, Trellis Partners, UMC, United Investment, The China Development Industrial Bank, and Premier Capital Management all participated in this round. New investors include Askew International Corp, Global Strategic Investment Fund, Chiao Tung Bank, Prudence Capital, Infinity Global Investment Ltd, and WQ Investments. The new funding was handled as an extension to MaXXan's previous funding round announced in 2001.

"We are very pleased that MaXXan continues to attract the kind of investment that will allow us to deliver on our vision," said MaXXan CEO Vic Mahadevan in announcing this additional funding. "This funding will allow us to complete development and bring to market our flagship enterprise storage network switching solution. It also gives us the ability to leverage portions of that development to take advantage of some immediate opportunities in the SAN / NAS convergence space with our software partners."

About MaXXan Systems Inc

MaXXan Systems is one of the first companies to introduce next-generation networking infrastructure technologies specifically designed to meet the needs of businesses deploying large-scale storage networks. The concept of delivering higher-level storage application functionality as services of the SAN was first introduced by MaXXan and is a core element of MaXXan's overall vision for a robust, scalable, intelligent storage- networking infrastructure while reducing the cost of management, deployment and ownership of those networks. With its headquarters in San Jose, California, and additional development facilities in Houston, Texas, MaXXan has assembled a world-class team of industry veterans experienced in developing products for the data-communications, telecommunications, storage networking, and Fibre Channel markets.