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Desh Deshpande to shut Silicon Valley venture

Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande, one of the top tech entrepreneurs from India in the Silicon Valley, is shutting his company Sycamore Networks.

The Nasdaq-listed company, which develops and markets bandwidth management solutions for fixed line and mobile network operators worldwide, shot into fame during the earlier technology bubble with market capitalisation at one point of time touching as high as $18 billion.

The company announced that its board of directors has approved the liquidation and dissolution of the company pursuant to a plan of liquidation and dissolution following the completion of the asset sale.

Deshpande, a relative of Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy, rose to fame on the listing of Sycamore and has also been an angel investor in a clutch of companies. Bangalore-based Tejas Networks is one of them.

"After careful consideration of the company's strategic alternatives, we believe these actions are in the best interests of Sycamore's stockholders, as well as its customers and employees," said Daniel E Smith, president and chief executive officer.

Sycamore Networks also announced it had signed a definitive asset sale agreement to sell substantially all of the assets of its intelligent bandwidth management business to a subsidiary of Marlin Equity Partners for $18.75 million.
"We are pleased with Marlin's decision to acquire our intelligent bandwidth management business operations, which will provide for continued support of our global customer base," he said.