Secret Start-Up Exablox Raised $22 Million in Series A and B

Exablox Corp. announced $22 million in venture capital funding after completing over-subscribed Series A and Series B rounds.

The funding will be used to drive product development, expand industry partnerships, and deliver on the company’s vision to enable organizations of all sizes to manage, protect, and access the information critical to their businesses.

VC firms DCM, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), and US Venture Partners were the principal investors.

Since its founding in 2010, Exablox has been working with customers and partners to address their storage pain points. It has found that runaway costs, complicated installation, cumbersome management, and lack of data security are the primary issues not being addressed by current storage solutions. Accordingly, the company is taking a clean sheet approach by developing an innovative cloud-managed scale-out storage solution for businesses’ valuable unstructured data.

Exablox has assembled a veteran storage team with a track record of building innovative storage solutions from companies such as Data Domain, Veritas, NetApp, Omneon, GreenPlum, Ocarina, and Bell Labs.

"Unrelenting cost pressures due to the explosion of unstructured data, the need for providing differentiated services, and the availability of better functionalities and professional support for software-based storage will create a receptive environment for alternative storage approaches and architectures that provide operational, financial and networking advantages," according to a recent Gartner report. [2012 Strategic Road Map for Unstructured Data Disk Storage, Stanley Zaffos, Valdis Filks, Arun Chandrasekaran, September 28, 2012]

The authoring analysts, including Stanley Zaffos, continue by stating: "The current state of storage is dramatically different. Today, we have storage architectures that are heavily weighted toward smart SAN storage arrays and relatively ‘dumb’ server file systems that are not distributed. SANs share storage arrays and network components, but files and even volumes are not shared. Traditional NAS that does not use distributed file systems often encounters scalability issues."

"Companies are frustrated by being forced into expensive storage solutions made unbearably complex by layers of bolt-on technologies, when they simply want the storage solution to address their business needs. The validation provided by our beta customers, partners, and investors confirms our vision for disruptive storage solutions," said Douglas Brockett, CEO, Exablox.

"Exablox exemplifies the kind of company in which DCM looks to invest: at the forefront of an exciting market opportunity, engineering a unique solution, and customer momentum that underscores its approach. The Exablox team is contributing significantly to an underserved storage market and we are excited to support them on this journey," said Carl Amdahl, general partner, DCM.

"The NAS storage market is expected to grow to more than $12 billion by 2016 and our firm has evaluated several opportunities in this sector. Exablox stands out because it takes a differentiated approach for companies struggling to manage valuable unstructured data – an approach that has already shown early traction with customer and partner validation. The promise of the core technology combined with the team’s proven track record makes this a compelling investment opportunity," said Matthew Howard, general partner, Norwest Venture Partners.

"Exablox is building a unique combination of hardware and software capabilities that will prove essential for businesses to easily manage their data and protect their business. We believe Exablox’s scalable storage solution will quickly gain traction in the market, and we are delighted to join the Exablox team," said Chris Rust, Partner, US Venture Partners.