Robin Systems Closes $15 Million Funding Round, Total at $22 million

Robin Systems, Inc., a trailblazer in reinventing IT infrastructure for increasingly data-centric enterprises, announced it closed a new funding round of $15 million, bringing to $22 million the total investment.

The company also announced Premal Buch as CEO and a number of other management additions.

Robin Systems is pioneering the creation of data-centric compute and storage containerization software to help enterprises accelerate, consolidate, and simplify their modern data applications. Using a combination of containers, flash, and storage virtualization technologies, it helps enterprises reduce hardware and operating costs, boost application performance, and gain business agility. Featuring more than a dozen patent-pending innovations, Robin provides an efficient and high performing operating infrastructure for modern data applications, including Spark, Hadoop, and NoSQL.

“Robin Systems represents a next-generation advancement in data management,” said Robin Systems’ chairman and founding investor Rajeev Madhavan. “Improvements in computing technology have enabled the processing of greater data sets in less time, but the technology to enable efficiency of that process has not kept pace with agility demands of today’s businesses. As a result companies are struggling with bloated hardware costs, data and cluster sprawl, and application performance problems. Robin Systems is uniquely positioned to relieve that struggle. We’re excited to have the backing of a diverse group of investors who share our vision for revolutionizing data management.“

The latest funding round was led by a USAA subsidiary and DN Capital, with participation from Hasso Plattner Ventures and existing investors.

The company plans to use the funding to further develop its solutions to reinvent the infrastructure for modern data and applications.

“When USAA invests in a company, we’re looking for innovations that could help us better serve our members. Robin has demonstrated a new perspective on data infrastructure and we’re excited to invest in them,” said Gopi Rangan, executive director, USAA Corporate Development.

“Investment in Robin’s data management technologies are imperative for streamlined management of enterprise data operations,” said Steve Schlenkar, managing partner, DN Capital. “The Robin team is delivering a solution which companies will soon recognize as vital to their operations.”

CEO Premal Buch joins Robin from Altera, where he served as VP of software engineering. He previously spent 15 years with software company Magma Design Automation, where he eventually served as GM of the company’s largest business unit. He has a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from BITS Pilani.

The addition of Buch is the latest in a series of key management additions.

Other key hires include:

Cheng Tang, whose background includes tours of duty with Oracle and Cisco and who recently joined the company as VP of engineering;
Sushil Kumar joined as CMO after 15 years with Oracle; and
Amir Assar assumed the role of VP sales after a number of years with IBM.

The company also attracted advisory team including:

former Endeca CEO Steve Papa;
Anand Rajaraman, founder of Kosmix and Junglee;
Eric Baldeschwieler, founder and ex-CEO of HortonWorks;
Fred Van Den Bosch, ex-CEO of Librato and ex-CTO of Veritas;
Andrew Feldman, ex-CEO of SeaMicro;
Manoj Leelanivas, CEO of Cyphort; and
Ben Verghese, VP of engineering at Illumio.

“I am delighted to join this accomplished team which has developed a disruptive, industry-changing technology,” Buch said. “I am very impressed with the strong customer interest the team has generated and look forward to scaling the business.”