ClearSky Data, a new startup firm focusing on technology solutions in enterprise infrastructure, landed $27 million in its Series B funding round to boost its sales and marketing teams.
The round was led by Polaris Partners, with Akamai Technologies involved as a strategic investor.
The latest round brings total investment in the Boston-based startup up to a total of $39 million.
Ellen Rubin, CEO and founder of ClearSky, said that the company will expand its 40-person team in sales/marketing and operations/support. She added that the startup will benefit from the addition of Akamai Labs CTO Andy Champagne as a ClearSky board adviser.
“We’ll be working with them as we go to market,” Rubin said. “We’ll engage with their sales teams and marketing teams as we go to enterprise customers. Basically, any enterprise we’re speaking with is already an Akamai customer.”
Tiered storage network
The company offers consumers a “tiered” storage network. Time-sensitive hot data is stored close to the customer, while archival or cold data is stored further away.
“ClearSky’s global storage network is the way for enterprises to move their data to the cloud—with the security, performance and availability they need to succeed,” Andy Champagne, vice president and chief technology officer, Akamai Labs at Akamai Technologies said in a statement.
“At Akamai, we know firsthand how to build a global network that meets the stringent requirements of enterprise customers, and we look forward to working with the ClearSky team to help customers worldwide as they adopt this new approach to enterprise storage.”
“Managing primary storage is a huge and poorly served challenge in the enterprise infrastructure market. Legacy systems – out of date computer systems – have failed to address customer needs and no one has figured out how to leverage the economics and agility of the cloud – until now. ClearSky has addressed this challenge head-on, creating a breakthrough software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering for primary storage,” managing partner of Polaris Partners Dave Barrett said in a statement.
“We’ve entered the next generation of the enterprise and ClearSky has a great opportunity to build the next major infrastructure company.”
Rubin also plans on expanding the business to other locations in the US and the globe.
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