Atrica Inc., a provider of Optical Ethernet equipment for the Metro networking market, announced it has received an investment from BellSouth Corp. (NYSE:BLS), a communications service provider in the United States. In addition, Douglas A. Bulleit, chief strategist at BellSouth, will join Atrica's advisory board.

In February of this year, Atrica announced that four service providers -- Telia (via Telia Business Innovation), SBC Communications Inc. (via AurumSBC Ventures), France Telecom (via Innovacom), and Bezeq -- joined Atrica's existing investors to provide the company with a second round of financing of $18 million. Prior to this, Atrica received $16 million in a first round led by Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners and $4 million in seed funding from 3Com Corp.

About Atrica:

Atrica's mission is to deliver cost-effective, high-performance Optical Ethernet platforms to service providers who are building next-generation Metro networks. For more information, visit www.atrica.com.