Well, we couldn’t go into the holiday season in Boston without a new data storage deal. Nasuni, a cloud storage startup based in Natick, MA, has closed $15 million in Series B financing led by new investor Flybridge Capital Partners. Existing investors North Bridge Venture Partners and Sigma Partners also participated in the round, which brings Nasuni’s total financing to $23 million. As part of the deal, Flybridge general partner Chip Hazard has joined the company’s board.
Nasuni (pronounced nuh-SOON-y) was incorporated in April 2009 and raised an $8 million Series A round about a year ago. The company is led by CEO Andres Rodriguez, formerly of Abuzz, The New York Times, and Archivas; and president Rob Mason, previously with EMC, I/O Integrity, and Archivas. The two are longtime data storage veterans and have built an engineering team with expertise in file systems, caching, and security and encryption.
Lots of companies, including StorSimple, Cirtas, TwinStrata, and giants like NetApp and EMC (and its newly acquired Isilon Systems), are trying to help businesses store, manage, and protect ever-increasing amounts of data in a cheaper, more efficient way. The big trend is toward software and devices that connect to the Internet cloud and storage vendors such as Amazon and Rackspace. The trick is how to build a secure, fast, and easy-to-use interface between companies and their cloud data.
Nasuni has an interesting approach that is purely software based. Essentially, the startup makes a “virtual file server” that stores all of a customer’s files with a given cloud storage vendor, but also keeps copies of working files cached to a local storage system so they can be accessed quickly. This also takes care of backing up files offsite.
The startup’s downloadable software is sold directly to medium-sized businesses, and through distribution partners. Its target customers are companies with $50-150 million in annual revenue that have run out of traditional storage capacity and want to find a cheaper and better way to extend it, Hazard says.
Nasuni says it is planning to use the new money to expand its sales and marketing efforts and drive adoption of its storage technology. The company has about 30 employees and is currently hiring.
