SAN JOSE, CA, Nimble Storage, developer of the first converged storage and backup solution, today announced that it has received $25 million in an over-subscribed Series D round of funding led by Artis Capital Management.

Artis Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Data Domain, which was purchased by EMC for $2.1 billion. Nimble Storage's existing investors Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital also contributed to the round. The investment will be used to support the company's rapid growth by expanding sales internationally and is expected to bring it to profitability.

"We recognize that storage is strategic for businesses; Nimble Storage's technology is highly differentiated, and we believe the company will disrupt the market," said Stuart Peterson, Artis Capital Management. "Investments like Nimble Storage don't come along often, and we wanted to get in early. We believe Nimble Storage will be the next 'big thing' in storage."

Nimble Storage, founded by former Data Domain and NetApp executives Varun Mehta and Umesh Maheshwari, has developed the industry's first converged iSCSI storage, backup and disaster-recovery solution. Based on the company's patent-pending Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL) architecture, the CS-Series enables fast inline data compression, intelligent data optimization leveraging flash memory and high-capacity disk, instant optimized backups, and WAN-efficient replication in a single device. This approach dramatically lowers equipment costs, reduces backup and restore time from hours to seconds, and streamlines storage management.

"Our approach delivers compelling storage economics and offers unparalleled data protection, a value proposition that serves as the foundation for building the next great storage company that will be around for decades," said Suresh Vasudevan, CEO of Nimble Storage. "This round of funding proves that the venture capital community recognizes our ability to do that, and we plan to grow our organization aggressively to reach that goal."

Since introducing the Nimble CS Series in July of last year, the company has won several awards, including CRN's Storage Product of the Year, Gartner's Cool Vendors in Storage Technologies and The Wall Street Journal's The Next Big Thing.

About Nimble Storage
Nimble Storage has developed the first converged storage and backup solution that significantly reduces the cost and complexity of storing, accessing, and protecting data for enterprises. The company's CASL architecture uniquely combines flash and high-capacity disk to support the most demanding primary applications and reduces backup windows and restore times from hours to seconds - all for at least 60 percent lower cost than existing solutions. Nimble Storage also provides a simple, cost-effective disaster recovery solution that offers business continuity and long-term data protection. Nimble Storage solutions are available through a nationwide network of IT solution providers.