Cloudian passes begging bowl round VCs to net $41m for object storage dev pool

S3 worshipper's funds now stand at $79m

Cloudian, the S3-or-bust object storage software startup, has passed a VC begging bowl around and raised $41m in a D-round of funding.

Total funding is now, Cloudian says, $79m, and the cash is going to be used for software engineering, expanding sales and marketing, and building out its international operations.

The funding round included all the existing investors: Intel Capital, INCJ, Eight Roads (the proprietary investment arm of FIL, Fidelity International Limited), and Goldman Sachs. Plus four new investors: Lenovo, City National Bank, Epsilon Venture Partners, and DVP Investment.

Lenovo OEMs Cloudian HyperStore software in its DX8200C product.

Cloudian was a niche player in a recent Gartner MQ, but a highly ranked one.

Some object storage startup funding totals:

• Amplidata – $44.5m and bought by HGST in March 2015
• Bycast – $14m and bought by NetApp in 2010
• Caringo – $33m
• Cleversafe – $135.4m and bought by IBM in October 2015
• Cloudian – $79m
• Exablox – $45.5m
• Scality – $90m
• SwiftStack – $23.6m

Comment

Cloudian’s VCs must think there is still great potential in object storage. Their endgame, their object even, might be an acquisition as the idea of a standalone object storage startup having an IPO looks a bit of a stretch. Potential acquirers could include Cisco, HPE and Lenovo, but not Dell EMC or NetApp. These three potential buyers could have Cloudian, Scality and SwiftStack on their shopping lists, which looks fetchingly symmetrical, three for three, but that very tidiness looks unreal. Life in storage startup land tends to be messier than that. ®