Seagate Invests $40 Million in Virident Plus OEM Partnership

Seagate Technology plc and Virident Systems, Inc. announced a strategic agreement to jointly deliver solutions for the growing enterprise flash, storage market.

Under the agreement, Seagate will immediately offer a complete line of flash-based PCIe solutions to its OEM and distribution partners. In addition, the two companies intend to leverage their mutual strengths to create next-generation, hardware and software solutions for the solid-state storage market. In conjunction with the agreement, Seagate has made a strategic equity investment in Virident, and will appoint one member to the Virident board of directors.
 
"Seagate is thrilled to team with Virident, a technology leader in one of the fastest growing markets in enterprise and cloud computing," said Gary Gentry, SVP and GM, SSDs at Seagate. "Together, we are working to develop the next-generation hardware and software solutions in the PCIe space. Our solid-state strategy is founded on both in-house development and through strategic partnerships with innovative companies to deliver the broadest portfolio in the industry. We believe that this strategic agreement immediately strengthens our leading position in the enterprise storage market by adding a broad line of Seagate flash-based PCIe solutions powered by Virident to our portfolio. We look forward to a long, productive partnership with Virident."
 
"We are extremely pleased to have Seagate as a strategic partner and investor," said Mike Gustafson, CEO of Virident. "This partnership validates Virident’s vision of pervasive flash in the performance tier and accelerates our shared vision by bringing next-generation SCM solutions to the enterprise and web datacenters worldwide. The agreement also expands Virident’s routes to market today by making our best-in-class PCIe flash products available to Seagate’s world-class channels."
 
Virident is also backed by strategic investors, Intel, Cisco Systems and a storage solution provider, as well as Hercules Technology Growth Capital and venture investors Globespan Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital, Mitsui Global Investments and Artiman Ventures.