5 Companies Invest in Internet Venture

A group of five Internet and networking companies is investing $40 million in Juniper Networks Inc. to help the start-up produce equipment to speed up the flow of information on the Internet. Juniper said 3Com Corp., WorldCom Inc.’s UUNet Technologies unit, Northern Telecom Ltd., Ericsson and a joint venture of Siemens and Newbridge Networks Corp. are paying $40 million for a 24.2% stake. Juniper is working on a new generation of equipment that will carry information on the Internet at higher speeds and with greater reliability than existing networking equipment, Juniper Chairman and Chief Executive Scott Kriens said. He declined to say when the Mountain View-based company would unveil a product. He also declined to reveal the equity stakes held by each of the new investors in closely held Juniper, which was valued at $165 million in this latest round of financing.