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Usually the companies we cover have some new angle or industry they’re attempting to grow into. Not so BreakingPoint, a company that makes equipment to stage mock attacks on internet networks.

Network testing equipment is about a $1 billion industry, dominated by three equipment makers: Agilent, Spirent and Ixia. The three have been raking in the profits for years without making any improvements to their products, says BreakingPoint’s co-founder, Dennis Cox.

The reason, he says, is because testing networks to see if they function correctly “just isn’t sexy,” and tends not to attract much attention. The equipment is also difficult to build, and to top it off, the market for such equipment appears to be stagnating.

BreakingPoint’s approach, like others, is intrusion prevention. Their hardware systematically attacks routers, switches, servers and other equipment, using the same attacks hackers would to find chinks in a network’s armor.

Cox says that although he expected his company to do well, there’s more demand than he expected for testing products. Most of the funding money will go toward expanding his sales team, at home and internationally. “We’re taking advantage now, before the competition notices,” he says.

That shouldn’t take long. Ixia, at least, makes most of its money on network testing, and can’t afford to lose much of the market.

BreakingPoint’s round of $15 million is the company’s third, from Austin Ventures, Genesis Inventions and several undisclosed investors. The company, which is based in Austin, Texas, has so far raised a total of $28 million.

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