Cloud infrastructure hardware inventor Cumulus Networks has received a $35 million round of funding to develop its version of specialised version of Linux aimed to make data centre hardware run better.

Venture backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Sequoia Capital, SV Angel, Wing Venture Capital and a new investor, Top Tier Capital. The valuation of Cumulus has fallen, however, since it received its last round of funding in 2014 when it received $36m.

Cumulus has edited Linux so that it boosts cheaper switches from bog standard manufacturers to perform on a par with high end kit from the likes of Cisco and Juniper. Facebook is among the data centre users that have used the software to customise their own switches and avoid paying six figures for kit. Cumulus wrote software for the Facebook-led Open Compute Project, a collaboration which led Facebook’s engineers customer build their own proprietary switches.

With 375 customers, include 9 companies in the Fortune 50, Cumulus is aiming to extend its switch boosting technology to IT organizations in all industries. Cumulus has supplied service providers Axcient, DreamHost and NephoScale, video company Ooyala and customer experience management software company Medallia.

CEO JR Rivers says that Cumulus now aims to help customers use its Linux system in a variety of operating models, by simplifying their move to a streamlined operating model of open networking. California based Cumulus Networks started in 2010 and by January 2014 was in partnership with Dell.

Meanwhile another venture aimed at helping corporate IT departments to create better software, Sendachi, has been launched with $30M of initial funding.

Seandachi is a merger of two DevOps firm, London based Contino and US-based Clutch and was launched with a $30 million investment commitment from venture financier Columbia Capital.

Sendachi aims to help catalyse the deployment of new services. “We don’t train internal teams in an abstracted way, we participate with them, showing them how by executing their real-world work. It’s not academic, it’s absolutely practical,” said Sendachi CEO Steven Anderson.