If you ask Pankaj Patel, there’s too much complexity in networks today — particularly enterprise networks. Complexity has been engineered into enterprise networks over a period of decades, in fact, he argues, and it’s happened because incumbents kept adding complexity to enable new functionality.

“At some point, the incumbents lost sight of where they were because what customers really want is the opposite: simplicity,” he told TechCrunch in an email interview. “They don’t really care what’s behind the scenes.”

In pursuit of simplicity, Patel — previously an executive VP at Cisco, where he led development of the company’s tech portfolio — founded Nile, which delivers wired and wireless networking as a service to large corporate customers.After tripling its customer base from September 2022, Nile — impressing investors, evidently — today announced that it raised $175 million in a Series C funding round co-led by March Capital and Sanabil Investments with participation from solutions by stc, Prosperity7 and Liberty Global Ventures, 8VC, Geodesic Capital, FirstU Capital and Valor Equity Partners. The new cash brings Nile’s total raised to $300 million, the bulk of which Patel says is being put toward future go-to-market growth and expanding Nile’s workforce from 185 employees to just over 210 by the end of the year.

“For this Series C round, we felt it important to raise funds with strategic partners who are committed to driving Nile into the Middle East and working with their partners on bringing Nile deeper into Europe,” Patel said. “It’s this desire for strategic investment that led us down the path of pursuing equity over debt.”There is a very large community of network engineers and architects who’ve long held the responsibility of building, managing, and maintaining these complex networks for decades,” Patel added. “Our subscription-based model reduces the heavy capital burden organizations taken when purchasing a network, and offers IT a system that will continuously be modernized by Nile, removing them from the burden of continuous lifecycle management.”