Investment to help expand reach of Shared Internal Storage to global customer base.
Boston, Mass, November 6th, 2007 - Seanodes, which launched in the US at Storage Networking World in Dallas last month, today announced the closure of a $6.5 million funding round led by investment firm 123Venture and GALIA Gestion that will propel the company’s rapid expansion of its Shared Internal Storage concept to customers worldwide. This round also includes initial investment firms ELAIA Ventures, IRDI/ICSO.
The additional funding will be used by Seanodes to continue research and development, expand marketing initiatives and increase its sales and support infrastructure in advance of the launch of its revolutionary Shared Internal Storage software technology that provides a new paradigm for commoditized infrastructures, combining the best elements of NAS, SAN and DAS to benefit users in a whole new way.
“The chance to invest in a company that is poised to revolutionize the storage industry through its innovative Shared Internal Storage concept is an opportunity that we simply couldn’t let pass by,” said Olivier GOY, CEO of 123Venture. “We believe in Seanodes’ ability to succeed in significantly reducing the expense and complexity of today’s escalating storage needs at companies worldwide.”
“We are pleased to have completed our latest funding round at such an opportune time as we bring our Shared Internal Storage solution to market,” said Jacques Baldinger, Seanodes CEO. “By developing an efficient, reliable and user-friendly approach to computing and storage infrastructures, we are positioned to alleviate headaches faced by IT personnel by transforming stranded internal server-based storage capacity into a new shared pool of high-performance, high-availability storage that slashes the total cost of ownership of SAN-based storage to unprecedented levels.”
Seanodes software allows customers to intelligently increase storage capacity by re-claiming unused internal disk space within existing application servers and make that capacity available as a high performance virtualized storage pool, eliminating the need for costly and complex conventional SAN and NAS products. Seanodes’ Shared Internal Storage enables full infrastructure consolidation, driving down both capital and operational costs by minimizing hardware expenditures, simplifying storage and server administration and reducing power and cooling expenses.
“IT costs continue to be a strain as promises of unified infrastructure simplification remain largely unrealized. Users need to reduce operational costs while increasing robustness. Seanodes Shared Internal Storage is well positioned as a reality today, delivering a breakthrough solution for both these growing needs,” stated Robert Gray, analyst with RobertGrayDirect.
ABOUT THE INVESTMENT FIRMS:
123Venture 123Venture is an independent asset manager dedicated to making private equity available to individual investors through funds of funds, multi-managed funds or managed accounts. 123Venture has about 300 M€ under management coming from more than 16.000 individuals. For more information: www.123venture.com.
GALIA Gestion A Private Equity Company, subsidiary of the “Caisse d’Epargne Aquitaine Poitou Charente” and affiliated to the French “Caisse d’Epargne Group”. Galia is based in Bordeaux, France, manages more than 60 M€, and invests mainly in the South West Region of France. For more information: www.galia-gestion.com.
ELAIA Partners ELAIA Partners is an independent venture capital firm focused on software-based technology. It has over € 50M under direct management and by delegation. The company works closely with the companies in its portfolio at all stages of development. It brings together a group of professionals from the high-tech and private equity industries, committed to taking an active role in its portfolio companies, and providing them access to the firm’s extensive technology experience. For more information: www.elaia.com.
IRDI/ICSO ICSO Private Equity manages risk funds (FCPR and FIP) dealing with Venture capital, LBO and Growth capital. The 18-people team is member of the economic interest group IRDI and has been performing for 26 years. Located in Toulouse and Bordeaux, ICSO Private Equity manages assets of about 200M€ and invests mainly in the south and the west of France. For more information: www.icso.fr.
ABOUT SEANODES Seanodes was founded in late 2002, the result of several years’ research in the IRIT research center in Toulouse, France. Inventor of the Shared Internal Storage concept (SIS), Seanodes broke new ground with the introduction of its first product, Exanodes™. Seanodes has received several awards since its creation (including 1st prize in the “5ème Concours National de Création d’Entreprises de Technologies Innovantes” which awards the most promising young innovative company of the year) for its cutting edge patented technology and its ground breaking product – Exanodes. For more information: www.seanodes.com.
