The number of corporate branch offices keeps growing, as does the number of mobile employees. At the same time, the trend for enterprises to centralize IT resources continues. Put together, these conditions make it increasingly tough for companies to ignore the performance of applications over the WAN. That bodes well for vendors offering WAN optimization and application acceleration gear (Compare Application Acceleration and WAN Traffic Optimization products), even as IT budgets get stretched more and more thin.

In the last newsletter, I highlighted the most recent financial results of three WAN optimization and application acceleration vendors. At a time when belt-tightening is common, it’s encouraging to see that vendors like F5 Networks are able to maintain continued revenue growth.

Another positive sign for the WAN optimization market is continued investment from venture capital firms. Just this week, Expand Networks announced it has secured $8.5 million in a round of funding led by Intel Capital and existing investors.

Expand plans to use the new funding to supplement R&D of its next round of WAN acceleration gear, specifically in the areas of virtualization. The funds will also be used to finance near-term technology acquisitions, the company says. (Side note: Expand also recently announced new features and pricing for its low-end acceleration devices, geared for branch offices.)

Meanwhile, Ipanema Technologies last week announced $7 million in new financing from London-based Noble Venture. The company plans to use the funds to expand its global coverage and grow its R&D staffing. “Raising these additional funds is a key element of our plan to drastically increase the presence of the company not only in Europe but also in North America and Asia,” Ipanema CEO Jean-Yves Leclerc said in a statement.

Ipanema’s strength has been selling its WAN traffic management systems to service providers, who then use the technology to offer managed application services to enterprises. Ipanema’s customers include BT, France Telecom/Orange Business Services, C&W, Tata Communications and Swisscom. According to Ipanema, about 75% of WAN optimization managed services from telecoms globally are powered by its gear.

In the next newsletter you’ll hear more about Ipanema from its newly appointed president, Reza Mahdavi. He joined Ipanema in August after 14 years with Cisco. As president, Mahdavi heads Ipanema’s worldwide operations and is based in its U.S. headquarters in Waltham, Mass. I spoke to him recently and will share his thoughts on what the future holds for Ipanema. Stay tuned.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.