Stratoscale, the software platform for hyper-convergence, today announced its series B funding of $32 million, led by Intel Capital, with participation by Cisco Investments and SanDisk, as well as other investors including the original series A investors, Battery Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP).
Stratoscale's distributed data center operating system transforms standard x86 servers into a hyper-converged infrastructure solution combining high performance storage with efficient cloud services while supporting both containers and virtualization on the same platform.
Stratoscale's rack-scale architecture takes advantage of hardware used in today's data centers. Delivering convergence at this scale requires new thinking, which has led to a solution delivering higher performance and significantly higher efficiency in data center operations. Stratoscale's true 'plug and play' architecture supports OpenStack and Docker, and provides high performance storage on any x86 architecture.
'Stratoscale's software helps customers optimize their data center infrastructure to meet the needs of both existing and new applications,' said Jason Waxman, vice president and general manager, Cloud Platforms Group, Intel. 'By intelligently aggregating heterogeneous infrastructure into shared pools of compute, network and storage resources, Stratoscale is addressing the need for greater efficiency of application management at scale.'
Directors Uri Arazi and Andy Fligel led the investment for Intel Capital, working with Managing Directors Marcos Battisti and Dave Flanagan.
'Stratoscale's promising architecture offers exciting new potential to quickly deliver flash storage benefits to the data center in a new and highly flexible way,' said Rene Hartner, vice president of corporate business development at SanDisk. 'Our investment and collaboration with Stratoscale complements SanDisk's leadership in enterprise storage and furthers our commitment to drive the development and adoption of innovative, next-generation technologies that can transform the data center.'
'StratoScale's approach to the convergence of data center infrastructure components, delivered at the rack-level, is unique in the marketplace and has the potential to enable efficient pooling of different Infrastructure-as-a-Service resources for Enterprises and Cloud Service Providers,' said Yoav Samet, vice president, Corporate Development, Cisco. 'We are excited to help drive innovation in Israel through this investment in an accomplished team.'
'With over $40 million total funding since inception, we are positioned to deliver the first pure-play software architecture for hyper-convergence,' said Stratoscale co-founder and CEO Ariel Maislos. 'Our customers are telling us we have unique technology and new ideas which are reinventing virtualization at scale. This additional funding will allow us to complete our product development as well as build out global sales and marketing.'
'Stratoscale is onto something foundational in enterprise IT,' said Scott Tobin, general partner at Battery Ventures. 'Today's data centers are looking for solutions which help increase overall efficiency. Stratoscale's technology delivers this in a software-based solution which allows customers to select their own hardware platforms to run on.'
'We are encouraged by the market and technical progress Stratoscale has made since our initial investment last year,' said Adam Fisher, partner, Bessemer Venture Partners. 'Its compelling, developer-friendly approach enables companies of all sizes to run anything and store everything; simply and efficiently.'
One year ago, Stratoscale announced its first $10 million funding from Battery Ventures and BVP, who are both investors in this second round. Stratoscale now brings in additional investors from industry leading technology companies Cisco, Intel and SanDisk.
About Stratoscale
Based in Herzeliya, Israel, Stratoscale is redefining the data center, developing a hardware-agnostic, software platform converging compute, storage and networking across the rack or data center. The self-optimizing platform automatically distributes all physical and virtual assets and workloads in real time, delivering 'rack-scale economics' to data centers of all sizes with unparalleled efficiency and operational simplicity. Stratoscale is backed by leading investors including: Battery Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco, Intel and SanDisk. For more information, visit http://www.stratoscale.com/
About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software, and services targeting enterprise, mobility, consumer Internet, digital media and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$11 billion in over 1,390 companies in 57 countries. In that timeframe, 209 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world and 359 were acquired or participated in a merger. In 2013, Intel Capital invested US$333 million in 146 investments with approximately 49 percent of funds invested outside North America. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit http://www.intelcapital.com or follow @Intelcapital.
About Battery Ventures
Battery invests in cutting-edge, category-defining businesses in markets including software and services, Web infrastructure, e-commerce, digital media and industrial technologies. Founded in 1983, the firm backs companies at stages ranging from seed to buyout and invests globally from offices in Boston, Silicon Valley and Israel. Follow the firm on Twitter @BatteryVentures, visit the Battery website at http://www.battery.com and find a full list of Battery's portfolio companies here.
About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) invests in early-stage, hyper-growth startups, partnering closely with entrepreneurs to build durable businesses. BVP is a global firm with offices in Menlo Park, Cambridge, New York, Bangalore, Herzliya and Sao Paolo. With $4 billion under management, BVP invests anywhere from $100,000 to $75 million in innovative companies like LinkedIn, Yelp, Skype, CornerstoneOnDemand, Pinterest, Box and Twilio. Over 100 BVP companies have gone public. Learn more at bvp.com and follow us on Twitter @BessemerVP.
About SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, is a global leader in flash storage solutions. For more than 25 years, SanDisk has expanded the possibilities of storage, providing trusted and innovative products that have transformed the electronics industry. Today, SanDisk's quality, state-of-the-art solutions are at the heart of many of the world's largest data centers, and embedded in advanced smart phones, tablets and PCs. SanDisk's consumer products are available at hundreds of thousands of retail stores worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.sandisk.com.