Avi Networks has just burst out of stealth to announce an initial $33 million funding round from well-known venture capital firms Greylock Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures.

With that cash, the company is aiming to disrupt some of the biggest incumbents in tech. It’s taking a software-defined approach to networking that puts the likes of Cisco Systems Ltd and Riverbed Technology squarely in its sights.

Those heavyweights currently rule the roost with proprietary – and high-margin – hardware, but things could be about to change. Avi Networks is what’s called a network function virtualization (NFV) provider – in other words it wants to swap out the software that drives proprietary networking gear so users can switch their expensive hardware for cheaper, white-box servers and still enjoy the same capabilities.

To make this possible, Avi Networks has built what it calls a cloud application delivery platform to afford a consistent end-user experience. The application delivery space is becoming far more complex as organizations move to the cloud, and Avi Networks believes that will lead to a major transition in the networking monitoring industry.

Avi Networks isn’t the only NFV startup rocking this particular boat. Akanda Inc. recently came out of stealth with a very similar product, while legacy giants like Hewlett-Packard Co., Red Hat Inc., and Alcatel-Lucent are also pushing the concept of NFV. However, Avi Networks differentiates itself by targeting the application delivery controller and the load balancer to keep apps running and performing as they should. Avi Network’s customized load balancing software runs on standard x86 hardware and is available on a “pay-as-you-use” basis, and comes with its own custom-built analytics engine to help users diagnose networking problems.

For a company that’s basically unknown, it’s already formed a number of partnerships. Its software is compatible with OpenStack, VMware and Cisco environments, while its partners include Chef, Cisco, Intel, Mirantis, Nuage Networks, Puppet Labs and Red Hat.

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