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It looks like an 18th century engraving: A group of men clad in red coats, white breeches and black hats, astride eager horses, a snuffle of hounds jiggering around nearby Then, suddenly the hounds are loosed and take off after a scent. The horsemen soon follow.
But it's not merry old England. It's not even the fox-andhounds countryside of Virginia.
It's a California cattle ranch and the men "riding to hounds" are a diverse collection of professionals and executives from across the state.
In the group is Jef Graham, president and chief executive officer of Peribit Networks Inc. of Santa Clara, an emerging high-tech company attracting attention in the telecommunications field.
Peribit makes a box that goes on both ends" of a data communications channel called a wide area network. The box at the "sending" end of the WAN looks for patterns of words, logos, photos and other portions of the message - even audio and sends them only once, no matter how many times they occur in the transmission. The box at the other end puts the missing pieces back in. The result is a much faster transmission of information, allowing a company to maximize capacity of existing telecommunications lines.
"We make a small pipe look like a big pipe," Mr. Graham says. "We're as dramatic to networks as laser printing was to impact printing."
And it has a good chance of being a big success, says longtime friend and fellow horseman Robert Kibble, managing partner of Mission Ventures, a San Diego-based venture capital firm.
"They've got real revenues, real customers," he says. "I think it's going to be a winner."
Mission Ventures does not invest in...