Mansour Karam

Founder and CEO Aria Networks

Last Reviewed: September 24, 2026

Executive Summary

Mansour Karam is founder and CEO of Aria Networks, a Palo Alto company building what it calls Deep Networking: purpose-built Ethernet switches, high-resolution telemetry and software agents designed to make the network an active optimisation layer in AI data centres. Aria launched its platform in April 2026 with $125 million in funding from Sutter Hill Ventures, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners and Eclipse Ventures. It is his second networking company as founder: he previously founded Apstra, the intent-based networking company Juniper Networks acquired in January 2021, and before that was Arista Networks’ first business leader.

Career Highlights

• Founder and CEO of Aria Networks, signing its April 2026 Form D as Chief Executive Officer; the company announced $125 million in funding alongside its product launch on 7 April 2026.
• Founded Apstra in 2014; Juniper Networks acquired it in January 2021 for approximately $180 million, according to Juniper’s annual report.
• Led Juniper’s Data Center products organisation as GVP of Products after the acquisition.
• Joined Arista Networks in 2006 as its first business leader, working with early customers to bring its first Cloud Networking products to market.
• Holds an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Professional Journey

Karam studied Computer and Communications Engineering at the American University of Beirut before earning an MS and a PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford. He began at RouteScience as a Principal Architect, working on the product and with customers and partners through the company’s acquisition by Avaya.

In 2006 he joined Arista Networks as its first business leader, working directly with early customers to define requirements and bring the company’s first Cloud Networking products to market. He later joined Big Switch Networks during the first wave of software-defined networking.

In 2014 he founded Apstra, which set out to automate data centre network operations around intent: operators describe the outcome they want and the software configures and continuously validates the network. Juniper Networks acquired Apstra in January 2021 for approximately $180 million, describing it in its annual report as a leader in intent-based networking, open programmability and automated closed-loop assurance. Karam went on to lead Juniper’s Data Center products organisation as GVP of Products.

He then started Aria Networks with co-founder and CTO Subhachandra Chandra, formerly a director of software engineering at Arista. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 2024 under the name Aureka, Inc., and dates its founding to 2025. Its argument is that in AI clusters the network has become a bottleneck that directly limits revenue; Karam put it as a 10% gain in tokens per second being a 10% gain in revenue. Aria sells engineered switches running 800G and 1.6T Ethernet together with telemetry spanning network, host and workload layers, and targets neoclouds and inference providers. The April 2026 launch came with $125 million in funding, and Gavin Baker of Atreides Management joined the board alongside Stefan Dyckerhoff of Sutter Hill Ventures.

He is also a musician, and has said the company’s name reflects both his luck with companies starting with the letter A and the musical meaning of aria.

Education

Stanford University

MS and PhD, Electrical Engineering

American University of Beirut

Bachelor’s degree, Computer and Communications Engineering