Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), Fidelity Growth Partners, and Existing Shareholders Including Intel Capital Invest to Help Cloudian Advance New Hybrid Cloud Initiatives and Accelerate Expansion into Global Enterprise Markets
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., and TOKYO Japan, July 8, 2014 — Cloudian, Inc., the leading provider of hybrid cloud storage solutions, today announced that it has closed a $24 million financing round with new investors, INCJ and Fidelity Growth Partners, and existing Cloudian shareholders, including Intel Capital. All three funds actively seek well-positioned, high-growth, enterprise-focused companies for investment and targeted Cloudian as a key provider of hybrid cloud storage solutions. The funding will enable the company to extend its global sales and marketing reach through targeted programs and amplified market development.
“This substantial investment is strong validation of our unique and leading approach to enterprise on-premises storage and hybrid cloud storage,” said Michael Tso, CEO and co-founder of Cloudian. “The rapid growth of unstructured data is transforming the data storage landscape. With this funding, we will accelerate the deployment of our production-proven storage solutions and revolutionize the cost, scalability and availability models for storing unstructured data in the enterprise.”
Cloudian HyperStore® plug-and-play software allows the easy deployment of enterprise private clouds using any commodity hardware. It is fully Amazon S3-compliant so enterprises can choose to leverage public cloud infrastructure such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) for long-term bulk storage while keeping their most critical data on-premises. This unique hybrid cloud approach ensures unlimited capacity expansion, straightforward data tiering, and unfettered use of the vast ecosystem of AWS S3 applications — all behind the firewall.
INCJ will join Intel Capital on the Cloudian board of directors.
About Cloudian
Cloudian is a Foster City, Calif.-based software company specializing in cloud storage. Cloudian HyperStore® is an S3-compatible cloud object storage platform that enables service providers and enterprises to build reliable, affordable and scalable hybrid cloud storage solutions. Cloudian actively partners with leading cloud computing environments including Amazon Web Services, Citrix Cloud Platform, Apache CloudStack, OpenStack and the vast ecosystem of S3 compatible tools and applications. Cloudian’s customers include Vodafone, Nextel, NTT, Nifty, and LunaCloud. The company has additional offices in China and Japan.
For more information or to try Cloudian today, please visit www.cloudian.com. Please connect with us: Twitter (@CloudianStorage), Facebook (www.facebook.com/cloudian.cloudstorage), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/cloudian-inc) and visit our blog (www.cloudian.com/blog).
About INCJ
INCJ was established in July 2009 as a public-private partnership that provides financial, technological and management support for next-generation businesses. INCJ specifically supports those projects that combine technologies and varied expertise across industries and materialize open innovation. INCJ has the capacity to invest up to ¥2 trillion (approx. US$20 billion).
To date, INCJ has invested approximately ¥750 billion in a total of 68 projects and is currently focused on a broad range of areas from green energy, electronics, IT and biotechnology to infrastructure-related sectors such as water supply. INCJ maintains a hands-on approach to investment, engaging in the business development of cutting-edge core technologies through intellectual property funds, expansion of venture companies and aggressive overseas development through initiatives such as restructuring and mergers of tech businesses and acquisitions of foreign companies.
About Fidelity Growth Partners Japan
Fidelity Growth Partners Japan is the venture capital and private equity arm of FIL Limited (hereafter “FIL”), focused on investing in Japan. Fidelity helps companies accelerate growth by providing them with FIL’s proprietary capital, expertise and access to global resources. FIL has actively invested in Asia for more than 15 years, and has venture capital and private equity investment teams in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai and Tokyo with decades of experience in the Asia Pacific region. FIL also has a financial services business which operates under the brand name of Fidelity Worldwide Investment, and is a global leader in asset management, providing investment products and services to individuals and institutions in the UK, continental Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.
About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel’s global investment and M&A organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software, and services targeting enterprise, mobility, consumer Internet, digital media and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$11 billion in over 1,366 companies in 55 countries. In that timeframe, 207 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world and 353 were acquired or participated in a merger. In 2013, Intel Capital invested US$333 million in 146 investments with approximately 49 percent of funds invested outside North America. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit www.intelcapital.com or follow @Intelcapital.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements include, among others, statements concerning our future financial performance, our ability to maintain and control costs, the effectiveness of our business strategies, market share opportunities, and reception of our value proposition, as well as demand for and adoption of our technologies in our customer markets. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current, preliminary expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including: the potential for slower than expected growth of the storage market or in customer adoption of our storage solutions, particularly in light of substantial uncertainty about macroeconomic trends in the United States and globally, and their potential impact on information technology spending; the impact of competitive conditions.
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