Gridstore acquires $12.5m in funding

GRIDSTORE, AN Irish data storage company which counts Iona Technologies founder Chris Horn among its backers and directors, has closed a $12.5 million venture capital funding round.

The Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund, which is managed by NCB Ventures, invested $1.5 million as part of the financing round. Other investors include US venture capital companies GGV Capital and ONSET Ventures. Representatives from both companies will now join the board of the company.

Gridstore was founded in 2007 by Kelly Murphy, Antoni Sawicki and Tomasz Nowak, and is based in Silicon Valley in the US.

It specialises in next-generation data storage solutions for businesses using a grid platform. Its products are sold through resellers who provide IT services and products to both small and large businesses and organisations.

The $12.5 million in funding follows a 2010 seed capital funding round through which the company raised $2 million from a group of investors including the Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund and a number of angel investors, including Chris Horn. That funding was used to scale the business in the US.

The new funding round will be used to help Gridstore develop its sales channels and speed up the delivery of its grid-based, scale-out storage solution internationally.

ONSET Ventures, which has over $1 billion under management,invests in IT and medical technology companies.

GGV Capital has a focus on investments in the US and China.

NCB Ventures is the venture capital arm of NCB Group, which was recently acquired by Investec. It manages the €75 million Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund established in 2008.