Midokura, a global startup focused on network virtualization, today announced it has raised $17.3M in Series A funding. The investment will be used toward furthering Midokura's vision, product innovation and go-to-market strategy.

The round was led by Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), a Japanese public-private partnership. Other investors who participated in the round include NTT Group's Venture Fund: NTT Investment Partners L.P. and NEC Group's Venture Fund: Innovative Ventures Fund Investment L.P.

As part of today's announcement, Midokura also named Dan Mihai Dumitriu CEO. Dan is a co-founder and previously served as CTO. Fellow co-founder Tatsuya Kato, who had been serving as CEO, is now Chairman of the Board.

Midokura offers an overlay-based network virtualization technology that allows cloud users to provision virtual network devices, including virtual switches, routers, firewalls and load balancers. Virtual network devices can then be connected to virtual machines, as well as other virtual network devices to create complex network topologies.

Midokura's MidoNet offers the industry a key added network virtualization benefit, as it was designed to be fully distributed and can be scaled out incrementally as demand increases. It also integrates with cloud management solutions so that virtual network device provisioning is automated. With MidoNet, users can virtualize the network stack for popular cloud platforms and reduce associated costs of managing the network. This impacts the overall economics of cloud computing by simplifying network requirements.

Supporting Quotes
"As enterprises and carriers embrace and build out IaaS clouds, an overlay-based network virtualization platform will soon be a must-have technology. The financial support of Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, and other key backers, validates our strategy as well as the work we've done over the past three years developing our industry leading product MidoNet. This funding will enable us to accelerate our product engineering, the establishment of partnerships, and the growth of our customer base. We look forward to delivering the most performant, scalable and fault tolerant network virtualization solution to the IaaS infrastructure market."
- Dan Mihai Dumitriu, CEO of Midokura

"With funding from INCJ and other key investment firms, we are now entering a new stage of growth in the network virtualization landscape. With our new financial support and management structure we will be able to better serve the global market. I'm excited to be able to accelerate Midokura's product development and expand our sales channel and customer base."
- Tatsuya Kato, Chairman of Midokura

"We, INCJ, strongly admire Midokura's extremely high-value of its innovative network virtualization technology and globally distributed team. We are certain that Midokura's MidoNet software already leads the global community of Software-Defined Networking, which solves problems over network infrastructure while the cloud service market grows rapidly. We also believe that Midokura has become a role model among startups for innovative software development, in order to foster attractive core industries from Japan in addition to manufacturing businesses."
- Mr. Kimikazu Noumi, President & CEO of INCJ

About Midokura
Midokura is a global startup focused on network virtualization. Founded in 2010, the team has a pedigree including Amazon and Google, and has spent more than two years building MidoNet, a complete overlay network virtualization solution that integrates with cloud platforms such as OpenStack. Midokura has offices in San Francisco, Tokyo, Lausanne and Barcelona, and is on the web at http://www.midokura.com.

About Innovation Network Corporation of Japan
INCJ was established in July 2009 as a public-private partnership that provides financial, technological and management support for next-generation businesses. INCJ specifically supports those projects that combine technologies and varied expertise across industries and materialize open innovation. INCJ has the capacity to invest up to YEN2.0 trillion. To date, INCJ has invested approximately ¥600 billion in a total of 38 projects and is currently focused on a broad range of areas from green energy, electronics, IT and biotechnology to infrastructure-related sectors such as water supply. INCJ maintains a hands-on approach to investment, engaging in the business development of cutting-edge core technologies through intellectual property funds, expansion of venture companies and aggressive overseas development through initiatives such as restructuring and mergers of tech businesses and acquisitions of foreign companies.
www.incj.co.jp