Dell has set up a $60 million Fluid Data Storage Fund to back early-stage storage start-ups, a combination of build and buy. Jim Lussier, managing director of Dell’s venture capital business, says it is looking for mid-level widgetry hoping to find the “next big thing.” Apparently that means cloud storage, memory-based storage and next-generation-storage architectures.
It figures to put a modest $3 million-$5 million per round in five to 10 promising start-ups in exchange for equity and access to the IP.
Of course they’d have to play to Dell architecture.
Dell says it’s “looking to change the economics of the storage industry by doing two things – bringing high-end enterprise features to the broad mid-market and solving enterprise problems at a midrange price point.”