All posts by Richard

Adams Capital Management, Hardware, NextIO, Venture Funding

NextIO Gets $12.3 Million for Datacenter IO Consolidation

NextIO today announced it has closed a Series F funding round of $12.3 million. This round included investment by existing investors and an undisclosed strategic investor. NextIO, which demonstrated significant growth in 2011, will use the new funds to further expand sales and marketing efforts and to further expand NextIO’s family of I/O consolidation solutions.

“Our investors have a strong history of successful investments in companies at the forefront of a number of technologies. This investment is important not only as a source of capital, but as a vote of confidence in our strategy for datacenter I/O consolidation,” said K.C. Murphy, President and CEO of NextIO. “After a very successful 2011 built around our vCORE and vNET product lines, we intend to double our revenue in 2012. Closing this funding is a critical step to achieving that goal, as it allows us to take our I/O consolidation solutions and marketing strategies to the next level in the U.S. and throughout the world.”

NextIO’s customer base includes technology leaders in a variety of markets, including managed service providers, internet service providers, aerospace, automotive technologies, oil and gas, government, and finance. In 2011 alone, several hundred NextIO I/O consolidation systems were installed into these customers worldwide. NextIO will use the capital from the Series F funding round to grow both its worldwide go-to-market efforts and its product portfolio to further increase revenue and market penetration in 2012 and 2013.

“NextIO’s I/O consolidation products are achieving impressive market penetration in the multi-billion dollar datacenter networking market,” said George Ugras, General Partner at Adams Capital Management. “The explosion of data and the migration to the cloud presents a great opportunity in this market, and NextIO is uniquely positioned to capitalize on these trends as customers look for next-generation networking solutions. The customer adoption to date has validated the value proposition for NextIO’s products, so we felt this was the right time to further invest in the company and capitalize on the tremendous demand we are seeing.”

NextIO’s portfolio of rack-level I/O consolidation solutions includes products for datacenter network consolidation, GPGPU computing, and high-performance storage. The newest product in the NextIO portfolio is the vNET I/O Maestro, which provides server connectivity at the rack level to both Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks without the need for changes in governance models or proprietary, hard to support I/O drivers. The result is the elimination of expensive 10Gb Ethernet NICs, Fibre Channel HBA, multiple top-of-rack leaf switches, and an up to 80% reduction in the number of cables at the back of the rack. By simplifying server I/O, the vNET I/O Maestro significantly reduces CapEx, power consumption and cooling, while providing the ability to dynamically reconfigure I/O resources across servers as the needs in the datacenter evolve due to business conditions.


Crosslink Capital, Foundation Capital, Human Resources, Keating Capital, Platinum Technology, SilkRoad technology, Tenaya Capital, Venture Funding

Keating Capital Invests $5 Million in SilkRoad Technology

Image representing SilkRoad technology as depi...

Keating Capital, Inc. announced that it has made a $5 million investment in the Series C Convertible Preferred Stock round of SilkRoad Technology Holdings, Inc. (“SilkRoad”). Keating joined new investor, NTT Finance, and existing investors, including Azure Capital, Crosslink Capital, Foundation Capital and Tenaya Capital, in the Series C financing round which raised a total of $35 million.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, SilkRoad is a global provider of cloud-based social talent management software, including tools for human resource management systems, recruiting, onboarding, learning, and performance management. SilkRoad’s comprehensive suite of human resource management solutions, the SilkRoad® Life Suite® product line, assists companies with managing the entire employee life cycle from pre-hire to retire.

SilkRoad was founded by technology entrepreneur Flip Filipowski, who previously started Platinum Technology, a database management company that completed an IPO and was subsequently sold to Computer Associates in 1999.

SilkRoad has recently been recognized with a bronze medal in the 2012 Stevie® Awards for the Innovation in Customer Service category and was named as a finalist in the 2012 CODiE™ Awards for excellence in its software solutions. The Stevie® Awards were created in 2002 to honor and generate public recognition of the achievements and positive contributions of organizations and working professionals worldwide. The CODiE™ Awards recognize excellence in the business software, digital content and education technology industries.

“We believe software as a Service (or “SaaS”) businesses with growing streams of recurring revenue are valuable assets; SilkRoad is one such company operating in the human resources space,” stated Timothy J. Keating, CEO of Keating Capital. “Flip and his team understand from past experience what it takes to transform an idea into a growing private company and beyond. We are delighted to become a direct investor in SilkRoad as they progress the company to the next level,” added Mr. Keating.

SilkRoad is Keating Capital’s third new portfolio company investment in 2012. With this investment, Keating Capital has now made investments of $49.5 million in 17 portfolio companies, including $13.6 million invested year-to-date.


Electronic discovery, Information Management, Legal, Legal Hold Pro, Partnerships, Zapproved

Nuix Launches Legal Hold Solution with Technology Partner Zapproved

Image representing Zapproved as depicted in Cr...

Nuix, a worldwide provider of information management technologies, and Zapproved Inc., developers of Legal Hold Pro, today announced a technology partnership to introduce Nuix Legal Hold. Nuix Legal Hold is a cloud-based legal hold notification and compliance tracking system that works with Nuix collection and eDiscovery solutions. Nuix Legal Hold is built on Legal Hold Pro, which has been enthusiastically embraced by Fortune 500 companies and government agencies because it is the fastest and simplest way to manage the legal hold notification and compliance process.

Nuix Legal Hold provides legal teams the ability to manage the electronic discovery process. The system streamlines the overall process of responding to anticipated litigation and satisfies the duty to preserve relevant information in a defensible, repeatable manner. With Nuix Legal Hold, legal teams now have a fully integrated electronic discovery solution that systematically tracks, notifies and analyzes data from custodians subject to litigation holds.

“Zapproved has developed an effective and efficient system for managing litigation holds and the preservation workflow, and we’re very excited to work together to offer Nuix Legal Hold as a valuable service for our customers,” said Nuix CEO, Eddie Sheehy.

“Nuix and Zapproved are both committed to introducing powerful solutions into the legal market that our users find simple and easy to use,” said Monica Enand, CEO and founder of Zapproved. “This partnership integrates two state-of-the-art solutions that empower organizations to take on managing eDiscovery in-house.”

Nuix Legal Hold is available now and will be showcased at LegalTech West Coast May 22–23 at Booth 312. For more information on Nuix Legal Hold visit www.nuix.com/legalhold.


Facebook, Social, Social media, Social network, Twitter

Sgrouples.com Launches Public Beta, Targets ‘Facebook Fatigue’

Sgrouples, Inc. (www.sgrouples.com)  launched into public beta today offering a private alternative to the social network, and a robust suite of services it hopes will make it an all-in-one tool for weary Web users.

Sgrouples’ free custom dashboard lets users create private personal groups, import and manage their social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and provides personal cloud storage.

“We believe social network fatigue, particularly over privacy, and demand for personal clouds, will be the key driving forces in the social space over the next one to two years,” said Mark Weinstein, founder and CEO of Sgrouples, and an early pioneer of Web 2.0 services. “As the Facebook IPO is this week, we feel that now is the perfect time to launch the all-in-one Sgrouples service, which offers an antidote to large social platforms like Facebook by building true privacy into the user model – no tracking, no profiling and no sharing of personal information.”

Weinstein is a 15-year veteran of social media, before it even existed as an Internet category. He was the founder of SuperGroups, which in 1999 was hailed by CNN, Time, Bloomberg News and Dow Jones, among others, and was a popular precursor to today’s social networks and community sites.

“I’ve followed Sgrouples for nearly a year,” said Colin Sebastian, director, equity research, for RW Baird. “Their leadership and development team have incredible vision and are making terrific progress. Moreover, the company is an early mover in addressing growing consumer concerns about social platform overwhelm and user privacy.”

“Privacy by design” is a key selling point for Sgrouples.com, which offers an unprecedented level of protection in its user bill of rights (https://sgrouples.com/privacy), patent-pending permission tool and transparent privacy policy. As Weinstein points out, Sgrouples.com does not track, monitor or profile its users, and no personal information will ever be gathered or shared with third party companies.

“It’s our belief that users are growing tired of large platforms like Facebook, and are ready to migrate towards smaller, more exclusive communities that can offer real privacy and trust in the social experience,” said Weinstein. “We want to re-engineer the social experience by allowing users to connect in a closer way with people they know, in a private platform they trust. Our goal is to create one private place, with a robust suite of services, where people can come to organize all of their real life communities.”

Sgrouples.com is a free all-in-one suite of services that combines many popular features on the Web in one easy-to-use place. From a single user-friendly dashboard, members can start their own private groups; manage their Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts; and enjoy a personal cloud to save and share photos, documents and important files.

Key features of the site include:

  • Privacy bill of rights – no tracking, no profiling, no sharing of
    personal information
  • Patent-pending permission tool (GroupAuthTM) lets users
    control their privacy settings
  • Private custom user groups
  • Cloud storage with My CloudTM (4GB free at sign-up, up to
    10GB free with sharing)
  • Social network aggregator in one easy-to-use dashboard
  • Organize and share favorite links with Check It OutTM
  • Event calendars users can create and share with others
  • Upcoming features: photo printing, apps and games, and Sgrouples Mobile


iPad, IT Management, Mobile, Mobile device, Mobile device management, Mobile Enterprise, Soonr

Soonr Lets Enterprise IT Control Tablets, Mobile Devices

Image representing Soonr as depicted in CrunchBase

Responding to the growing trend of data being created, consumed and stored on mobile devices that are not controlled by IT, Soonr, a leader in secure business cloud services that transforms tablets like the iPad into business productivity tools, today announced Soonr Enterprise to help solve the mobile enterprise challenges large organizations are facing.

“Soonr is helping our global sales organization fully exploit the power of its smart devices – transforming its tablets and smartphones into reliable alternatives to carrying a laptop,” said Al Lounsbury, director of Digital Tools, Corporate Marketing at Ciena. “They can access core content to do business – whether they are documents, presentations or videos – and work on them seamlessly and securely within the cloud infrastructure.”

Soonr Enterprise builds upon its existing enterprise grade infrastructure and services that have been in continuous operation since 2005, now serving over 120,000 businesses globally.

Business units and Teams want easy access to content across mobile devices, while their IT counterparts want to ensure that access to sensitive information is secured and controlled according to corporate policies. IT professionals have genuine concerns about the extreme security risks of unmanaged cloud services and are issuing legitimate warnings about a lack of controls, capabilities, reporting and integration. Even so, business units are being rapidly drawn to what tablets and mobile devices can give them – agility, ubiquity and simplicity.

“IT needs to provide corporately endorsed solutions that are easy for individuals to use, but provide IT with security, control and accountability,” said Terri McClure, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “With the Consumerization and mobilization trends, IT has some real interesting challenges with data and compliance issues on end-user mobile devices. IT needs vendors like Soonr to help address these data access and collaboration challenges in the enterprise because they are not going away.”

Soonr understands the complexity of security and compliance issues facing today’s IT departments and their requirements for managing cloud services. Soonr’s services run over a purpose-built, enterprise-grade infrastructure that relies on geo-redundant data centers in major regions that delivers better than 99.9 percent uptime with industry-leading response and service restoral time guarantees. Security of customer information is assured with 256-bit AES encryption of data in transit and storage with dynamic key rotation, virus scanning, and firewalls against hacking attacks. Role-based access controls, password protection and expiration timers for share links, and inactivity session timers deliver best-in-class user security. Finally, encryption of all local session information and non-persistent use of login credentials provide critical protection against lost or stolen devices.

“It’s an issue that every large organization has to come to grips with – and it is not an easy one,” said Martin Frid-Nielsen, co-founder and CEO of Soonr. “But we’ve come up with a solution that helps CIOs and their IT departments to navigate the divide between security and ingenuity. The last thing you want to do is hold your company back from effective sale approaches – and the modern ways of doing business – because of fear.”

The new capabilities being announced today are designed to expand the level of control enterprise IT is able to exert over users, devices and the documents that are part of the cloud collaboration environment under IT management. These include the ability to create and manage Groups from global team lists with custom share permissions, which reflects how Projects are actually managed in large companies. Both users and Groups may now be imported from enterprise Active Directory databases so that adding individuals to Projects with the right permissions is fully automated, saving time and reducing mistakes when multiple systems have to be configured.

New Policy Management capabilities allow the enterprise IT Admin to access all Projects users may have created with the ability to view, search, edit and delete Projects, as well as to control how Projects are shared with other employees or external parties. These new controls enable businesses to be in compliance with industry regulations or lawful access requirements.

Advanced reports and audit trails about user, group, device, and Project-related activities provide a rich set of tools that can be used for business analytics, such as determining how Projects and documents are being used, or for diagnostic, compliance, or security purposes.


Cloud Sherpas, Google, Google Apps, Guest Post, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office 365, Office 365

Cloud Competition: Microsoft Cuts Prices, Adds Platform

Guest Post by Sharon Shapiro of Cloud Sherpas

Although it only entered the cloud computing market in July 2011, Microsoft has already made a name for itself with Office 365, its hybrid cloud solution available to businesses.  But despite its initial climb, Microsoft has yet to catch up to Google when it comes to cloud computing.

Google has worked as a cloud service provider, with its fully-based cloud solution Google Apps, since 2006.  Google offers customers four different cloud computing platforms (business, education, government, and non-profit) and a 99.9% uptime guarantee, including service and updates, that it regularly exceeds.  In contrast, Office 365 is currently available only for businesses and has had issues meeting its promised 99.9% uptime, which does not include service and updates.  Google Apps pricing is also much lower than Office 365 pricing, with the highest priced Google Apps platform (business) operating at $50/user/year and the lowest Office 365 plan operating at $72/user/year.  But a lot of that is about to change as Microsoft has announced news that it hopes will bridge the gap.

First, Microsoft recently announced that it will be cutting the price of Office 365 by up to 20 percent.  Microsoft says this is because it now costs less to run the hybrid cloud platform than it did when Microsoft first introduced Office 365 last July.

Second, Microsoft says it will soon add a new plan – Office 365 for Education – which will widen the customer base.  The release of Office 365 is clearly an attempt to compete with the success of Google Apps’ free education platform.

Although lowering its prices and adding a plan for educational institutions are steps toward competing with Google Apps, Microsoft still has a big gap to close.  Google Apps will still boast more platforms (government and non-profit, in addition to the free version that many people use in their personal lives) and five more years of experience in the cloud.  With this greater experience, comes enhanced cloud service, as Google Apps is a fully cloud-based solution that offers its users complete universal access and proven reliability.  In contrast, it is important to remember that Office 365 is still a hybrid cloud solution that requires on premises servers and that, when it comes to document creating capabilities, works best in conjunction with Microsoft Office installed on a desktop.  Both of these necessities limit the mobile access that Office 365 users can enjoy.   Additionally, Office 365 has already been plagued with a number of outages that have resulted in significant amounts of downtime for users across the world.

These key differences between Office 365 and Google Apps may be part of the reason why the governments of major cities, like Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, trust Google Apps for their communication needs.

While Microsoft’s price cut and addition of an education plan will definitely improve the Office 365 cloud suite, these changes will certainly not put Microsoft and Google on an even playing field, as Google still boasts more authority, reliability, and a wider range of services.


Financial Services, Iceni, M&A Activity, Mobile, Plextek Limited

Plextek, RedCloud Acquire Iceni Mobile Payments System

Plextek Limited, a product innovation and design consultancy and RedCloud Technology Limited, an investor in mobile financial services in emerging markets, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Intellectual Property Rights of Iceni Mobile Ltd including the mobile payments system (the I2S platform) developed by the same team that brought the world’s most successful mobile money service, M-PESA, to market.

The acquisition signifies both Plextek’s and RedCloud’s commitment to the mobile money market. With the founding team, the companies plan to deliver the technology as a platform as a service and create a new way in which mobile money and associated services are taken to market.

“Plextek and RedCloud share a vision for extending the mobile payments value chain to transform the way in which financial services are launched in emerging markets,” said Ian Murphy, Technical Director and Founder of Plextek. “The next generation of mobile payments technology is about leveraging the power of secure cloud computing platforms; it’s about a fundamentally better way to recruit, manage and empower banks to deliver mobile financial services.”

“Our cloud financial services investment strategy is accelerating, and is at the root of the broad-based transformation and innovation we are seeing from customers today,” said Justin Floyd, Founding Partner of RedCloud. “The launch of the Platform as a Service model revolutionizes mobile payments through banks and mobile operators in emerging markets. It’s an important step to making technology available at a lower cost of ownership to those that need it most.”

“We are set to transform the way in which mobile money technology is delivered to financial organizations,” added Warren Carew, one of the founders of Iceni. “Traditional mobile payment software that many financial organizations use today was designed to work in an offline world. Platform as a Service will remove barriers to entry for future providers allowing them to accelerate their entry to market.”

Iceni’s core services provide robust authentication solutions for web access and mobile solutions designed for un-banked populations over multiple service channels. The services include proximity and remote payment services such as in-store or online mobile payment, money transfer, and more. The I2S platform enables banks, payment service providers, and telecom operators to offer accessible and secure financial services to anyone with a phone.


Firstserv, Hosting, M&A Activity, Serverstream, Six Degrees Group

Six Degrees Group Announces Two Cloud Hosting Acquisitions

Six Degrees Group today announced that it has completed the acquisitions of two London-based managed hosting and cloud providers. Firstserv and Serverstream were both founded over 10 years ago and focus exclusively on the rapidly growing hosting market with a particular emphasis on the digital media, publishing and leisure sectors. Customers include Sunseeker, The Spectator and Port of London Authority.

Both Firstserv and Serverstream will be integrated into Six Degrees Group’s managed data division where they will add £3m of hosting revenues, representing a mix of managed hosting, cloud hosting (virtual private, private and hybrid) and complex web hosting. 17 highly-skilled personnel will be joining Six Degrees Group where they will focus on integrating and expanding the Group’s hosting platforms. The acquisitions are part of a series of strategic investments being made in the Six Degrees Group’s cloud offering.

Following these transactions, Six Degrees Group’s run-rate revenues now exceed £40m with underlying EBITDA of over £10m. The company continues to enjoy strong double-digit organic growth, underpinned by cross-selling.

Alastair Mills, CEO of Six Degrees Group, stated: “I am delighted to welcome both Firstserv and Serverstream to Six Degrees Group. This announcement sees the Group continue to focus on managed data services, particularly in the fast-growing cloud hosting sector. Our goal for 2012 is to become one of the top five hosting and cloud providers in the UK.”

Gordon Kenneway, MD of Firstserv, said: “This is an important day for all at Firstserv. Our employees will now have access to a larger, geographically diverse hosting platform with best-in-class compute and storage resources, which is also a very exciting step for our customers. I am looking forward to joining Alastair and the Six Degrees team to help establish their position as one of the UK’s fastest growing cloud companies.”

Jonathan Obadia, MD of Serverstream, commented: “We are excited to be joining Six Degrees Group. Serverstream has a strong reputation for delivering complex hosting solutions to mid-market customers and this merger enables us to continue our expansion with additional services, scale and geographical diversity. Our customers will continue to receive the same exceptional levels of service and support that they’ve become accustomed to, with the added benefit of access to


Actuate, Actuate Corporation, Apache Hadoop, Big Data, Hortonwork, Hortonworks Data Platform, MapReduce, Open Source, Partnerships

Actuate, Hortonworks Collaborate to Visualize Big Data

Image representing Actuate as depicted in Crun...

Actuate Corporation, the people behind BIRT and an open source Business Intelligence (BI) vendor, today announced a collaboration between Actuate BIRT and the Hortonworks Data Platform, to enable Big Data visualization. The Hortonworks Data Platform is a completely open source, tightly integrated and tested distribution of Apache Hadoop, backed by extensive customer support and training.

The ActuateOne integrated product suite—built around BIRT—uses native access Hive query to leverage MapReduce functions to extract data from Hadoop, pulling those data sets into customizable BIRT-based dashboards and scorecards for interactive visualization and analysis.

“We have dedicated significant resources to make Apache Hadoop more robust and easier to integrate, extend, deploy and use,” said John Kreisa, VP of Marketing at Hortonworks. “Our partnership with open source BI leader Actuate enables more users to cost effectively analyze vast amounts of data stored in Hadoop using open source technologies.”

“Actuate’s collaboration with Hortonworks will ease the transition from Big Data hype to Big Data usefulness,” said Nobby Akiha, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Actuate. “We believe the key to success with Big Data lies in building the right infrastructure to manage it. Teaming with Hortonworks will further our goal of helping organizations figure out how best to leverage and integrate Big Data sources to enable better decision making.”

Large organizations are increasingly turning to Apache Hadoop for the storage and management of massive amounts of data and thus need scalable ways to explore, analyze and visualize the insights stored within it. The combination of the Hortonworks Data Platform’s distributed processing of Hadoop data sources of any size, with Actuate’s scalable infrastructure and intuitive data visualization capabilities, enables organizations to more effectively operationalize Big Data for thousands of customers, partners and employees.


Computer Hardware, Data center, Hardware, InfiniBand, Mellanox, Mellanox Technologies, Virtualization, VMware, VMware vSphere

Mellanox Releases InfiniBand Driver for VMware vSphere

Image representing Mellanox Technologies as de...Mellanox Technologies, Ltd., a supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, today announced the availability of InfiniBand driver support for VMware vSphere® 5, providing IT end-users the compelling choice of deploying field proven InfiniBand-based interconnect in virtualized data center and cloud environments. Running with Mellanox’s industry-leading ConnectX®-3 FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand adapter cards and SwitchX® FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand switches, the InfiniBand software driver for VMware vSphere 5 helps bring high throughput and low latency to virtualized IT deployments.

The InfiniBand driver for VMware vSphere 5 along with features like VMware VMDirect Path I/O, vMotion® and VMware High Availability (HA), leverage InfiniBand’s advanced built-in reliability and performance capabilities to help bring high performance and cost-effective solutions to IT end-users.

“Virtualization is proven to be the most effective technology to drive lower data center total cost of ownership and improve the cost-effectiveness of cloud computing SLA,” said David Barzilai, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox’s InfiniBand driver leverages the advanced data center virtualization and high availability features of VMware vSphere 5 to help bring new cost-effective system architectures for the next generation of flexible, reliable IT services.”