Axxana Secured $9 Million

Carmel Ventures has led a $9 million Series B investment in Axxana. Axxana’s existing investors, Gemini Israel Funds and the serial entrepreneur Moshe Yanai, also participated in the round.

The funds will be used to accelerate the adoption of The Phoenix System – the first ‘Black Box’ Enterprise Data Recorder (EDR). Ronen Nir, partner of Carmel Ventures, joined Axxana’s Board of Directors.

Axxana was founded by Alex Winokur, Ph.D., Eli Efrat and Dan Hochberg, veterans of the data storage industry, to address the number one challenge in data protection: recovering data with zero data loss over any distance. Axxana’s first EDR (Enterprise Data Recorder) product, the Phoenix System RP, was demonstrated at EMC World in May 2009.

“Axxana’s EDR brings a disruptive solution that is well poised to transform the entire storage replication market and create a whole new category within it,” said Ronen Nir, Partner at Carmel Ventures. “We are impressed with Axxana’s strong founding team and their achievements so far, including impressive endorsement by leading storage vendors worldwide. We look forward to joining their existing investors in supporting Axxana to become a leader in this fast growing market.”

“This round of investment demonstrates continued confidence in the strength of our technology and its enormous market potential,” said Eli Efrat, Axxana’s CEO. “It is a significant validation of our business strategy and product roadmap. The ability to provide organizations with zero data loss over any distance, combined with an affordable price tag, ensures that SMEs and large enterprises no longer have to compromise their disaster recovery solution.”

Axxana’s first product to the market is the Phoenix System RP, which is the only product to enable 100% disaster recovery with zero data loss (RPO=0) over any distance, for significantly less than the cost of traditional data mirroring alternatives. The Phoenix System RP complements the asynchronous replication solution offered by EMC’s RecoverPoint.

Comments

Total financial funding for the start-up founded in 2005 is now at $14 million after a first round at $5 million in 2007. Axxana is headquartered in Wellesley, MA with office in in Tel Aviv, Israel where the company starts its activity.

Moshe Yanai, known as "Mr. Symmetrix" and now working at IBM in its Systems and Technology Group in Waltham, MA, was also involved in Diligent Technologies and XIV Ltd. Israeli start-ups, among other companies. Both of them were acquired by IBM in 2008, XIV for $300 million and Diligent for a reported $200 million.

Will Axxana be the next Big Blue's acquisition? It will be curious to see an IBM's Fellow selling its shares of an outside company to the firm where he is an employee.