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RackWare Nabs $2.3M Round of Funding

2014-07-09
SANTA CLARA, CA, Software provider that integrates data center and cloud resources into a scalable and intelligently managed computing environment, today announced a new $2.3 million round of funding.
RackWare, the software provider that integrates data center and cloud resources into a scalable and intelligently managed computing environment, today announced exceptional company momentum and a new $2.3 million round of funding led by existing investors Kickstart Seed Fund and Osage Venture Partners. This funding caps RackWare's record growth over the past year with milestones in customer acquisitions, technology innovation and executive team expansion.

RackWare's flexible and automated cloud management solution RackWare Management Module (RMM) enables enterprises to easily and cost-effectively move their workloads seamlessly between private, public or hybrid cloud environments while allowing them to expand and contract resources as they are needed. The technology has seen increasingly accelerated demand from enterprises worldwide as they embrace the cloud and demand intelligent scaling and migration capabilities to suit their evolving infrastructure needs.

The new funding brings RackWare's total amount raised to over $7 million to date. Funding will be used to drive product development and accelerate awareness of RMM, expand sales and marketing operations and expand its presence in to the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.

July 1, 2014 marks RackWare's third consecutive quarter of record customer and revenue growth. The company experienced 75 percent customer gains from the first half of 2013 to the first half of 2014. Some of the new customers from the U.S., Canada, U.K. and France include Blue Shield, IHS, ZS Associates, Vivint and WhiteWave. The company has also gained traction in key verticals, including financial services, consulting, healthcare, retail and service providers.

To support RackWare's global expansion and swift growth, the company has expanded its management team, while also doubling the size of its team at its Santa Clara headquarters and R&D center in Salt Lake City. In the first half of the year, RackWare added Eric Sherman as vice president of worldwide sales and Steven Olson as vice president of engineering.

An author and co-author of five patents, engineering expert Steven Olson will drive development of RMM. Olson brings over 20 years of experience in software management and development with companies including Intel, SiPort (acquired by Intel in 2011) and Minerva Networks.

Another 20-year veteran of the software industry, Eric Sherman will leverage his most recent experience driving worldwide sales for private cloud automation vendor Gale Technologies, contributing to its 2012 acquisition by Dell. Armed with RackWare's new funding, Sherman will focus on fueling customer growth in both the EMEA and North America regions.

Over the past six months RackWare has broadened its enterprise market reach by cementing marquee strategic partnerships, including a February 2014 partnership with IBM company SoftLayer that allows organizations to quickly and easily extend their data centers in the SoftLayer cloud infrastructure. RackWare also solidified partnerships with CenturyLink, a global leader in cloud and managed solutions, and Peer1 Hosting, a global web infrastructure and cloud hosting provider.

Supporting Quotes
'We've experienced phenomenal quarter over quarter growth in every corner of our business as enterprises increasingly turn to RackWare for cloud mobility and elasticity solutions. Continued investor confidence, as well as ongoing validation from partners and customers, underscores the work we've done to date,' said Sash Sunkara, chief executive officer and co-founder of RackWare. 'Our unique approach to intelligent cloud automation is proven in implementations across a range of verticals. The additional capital we are announcing today will help us extend the experience to new markets and further fuel the mass adoption of our cloud technology.'

'RackWare is well positioned to take advantage of the projected growth of the cloud market,' said Nate Lentz, managing partner at Osage Ventures. 'With a repertoire that includes brand-name customers, 'Goliath' partners, and a mounting interest in cloud automation from large companies, RackWare will likely be viewed as a disruptive force in its market. All of this creates an exciting and opportunistic year ahead for RackWare and we are pleased to tie ourselves to the future success of the company.'

'RackWare exemplifies the type of company Kickstart Seed Fund historically looks to invest in -- at the forefront of an exciting market, engineering a unique solution and an experienced team that understands the unique business needs of the market,' said Gavin Christensen, managing director at Kickstart Seed Fund. 'The RackWare team brings together a pioneering approach to help enterprises easily and cost-effectively move their workloads between private, public or hybrid cloud environments with a truly differentiated product offering, under the guidance of exceptional founding leadership.'

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About RackWare
RackWare brings intelligence and automation to the cloud, providing greater availability for enterprises, greater flexibility for enterprise IT users and reduced costs for enterprise IT providers. Computing resources -- physical, virtual and cloud machines -- can be easily and automatically scaled up or down as demand fluctuates. On average, RackWare customers realize a cost savings of 40 to 50 percent, while getting the highest performance and availability out of their cloud. RackWare was founded in 2009 and is based in Santa Clara, California. For more information, go to:
www.rackwareinc.com.
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