Avere Nabs $20M to Grow Hybrid Cloud Storage Solutions

To accelerate growth of its hybrid cloud storage business Avere Systems announced it has raised $20 million in a Series D funding round, led by Western Digital Capital. Avere will use the funds to continue enabling the enterprise adoption of its hybrid cloud storage solutions, as well as accelerate sales and marketing. This funding round brings the total amount invested in the company to $72 million. Previous investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Tenaya Capital also participated in the latest round.

“The reality for 99 percent of enterprises is they will operate increasingly in a hybrid IT storage environment for many years to come. This means that no single storage technology will win, and both on-premises and cloud storage will be required to achieve cost and performance goals,” said Ron Bianchini, president and CEO of Avere. “With this Series D funding round, we continue to scale the company so that we can provide the best solutions to customers embarking on their hybrid cloud path.”

The performance parity of cloud storage  in recent times is what has allowed for yet another means for companies to enable hybrid cloud storage across storage type, location, budget and vendors. Bianchini attributes three things to enabling the new hybrid cloud storage world: enterprise NAS performance in the cloud, zero-pain migrations and effortless provisioning.

“Avere Systems is ushering in the new era of enterprise-class hybrid storage, which is a boon to organizations that struggle with the cost and performance of managing on-premises and cloud file locations, while also deciding whether to use hard disk or solid state drive technology,” said George Crump, president and founder of Storage Switzerland. “Avere’s technology enables its customers to select and provision storage options instantly, and this capability will drive new operational efficiencies and competitive advantages.”

In business for six years now Avere claims to have large global enterprises as customers. It hosts digital downloads for the Library of Congress and is well known in the visual effects industry, where it says its products were used in video rendering for each of the top 12 blockbuster movies in 2013. Avere recently noted that Australia-based Rising Sun Pictures, a visual effects specialist whose credits include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Gravity, is using Avere FXT Series Edge filers to render their movies.