# Vishal Shukla

> Vishal Shukla is the co-founder and CEO of Aviz Networks, a San Jose-based company building an AI-first, vendor-agnostic networking platform on top of the open-source SONiC operating system. A networking veteran with more than 20 years of experience, he previously held leadership roles at Cisco, IBM, Mellanox (NVIDIA), and Nortel. He holds 25-plus granted patents, has authored books on SDN, OpenFlow and OpenStack, and wrote 'Deciding the Future: Building New Networks for the AI Era.' Under his leadership Aviz raised a $17M Series A in November 2024 (roughly $31M total), backed by investors including Cisco Investments and Qualcomm Ventures.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Aviz Networks
- **Organizations:** Aviz Networks, NVIDIA (Mellanox), IBM, Cisco, Nortel Networks, BNT, MobileIron
- **Education:** Duke University - The Fuqua School of Business
- **Known for:** Co-founded and scaled Aviz Networks into an AI-first, vendor-agnostic networking platform, Led a $17M Series A in 2024, bringing total funding to roughly $31M, Grew company revenue 400% year over year and expanded from two products to four

## Career timeline

- **pre-2019** — Held leadership roles across Nortel Networks, Cisco, IBM/BNT, MobileIron, and Mellanox (NVIDIA) over 20+ years in networking
- **2019** — Aviz Networks joins the SONiC community to accelerate open-source networking adoption
- **2019** — Co-founds Aviz Networks with Chid Perumal (CTO)
- **2023** — Raises approximately $10M in funding round
- **2024-11** — Closes $17M Series A led by Alter Venture Partners with Cisco Investments, Qualcomm Ventures, Celestica and others; ~$31M raised to date
- **2025** — Publishes 'Deciding the Future: Building New Networks for the AI Era'; speaks at AI Infrastructure Summit 2025

## Achievements

- Co-founded and scaled Aviz Networks into an AI-first, vendor-agnostic networking platform
- Led a $17M Series A in 2024, bringing total funding to roughly $31M
- Grew company revenue 400% year over year and expanded from two products to four
- Holds 25+ granted patents in SDN, IoT, cloud orchestration, automation, and performance monitoring
- Authored multiple books on SDN, OpenFlow, and OpenStack, plus 'Deciding the Future: Building New Networks for the AI Era'
- Early and prominent leader in the SONiC open-networking movement since 2019

## Latest updates

- **2024-11** — Aviz Networks closed a $17M Series A led by Alter Venture Partners with strategic investors including Cisco Investments and Qualcomm Ventures.
- **2025** — Published 'Deciding the Future: Building New Networks for the AI Era' and appeared at the AI Infrastructure Summit 2025 on scaling AI workloads with open networks.

## Links

- Website: https://aviznetworks.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/vis-shukla

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/vishal-shukla
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-24