Enterprise Storage Startup ClearSky Data Raises $27M

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This article originally appeared at The WHIR

Storage network provider ClearSky Data announced on Monday that it has raised $27 million in a Series B investment round led by Polaris Partners. ClearSky said it will use the funding to grow its sales, marketing and operations organizations and add new points of presence.

Other investors that participated in the round include previous investors General Catalyst and Highland Capital Partners. Akamai Technologies also participated with a strategic investment. With this latest round, ClearSky’s total funding has reached $39 million.

ClearSky uses a managed services delivery model for enterprise storage, which Polaris Partners said represents “the future of enterprise infrastructure.”

“Managing primary storage is a huge and poorly served challenge in the enterprise infrastructure market. Legacy 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.”

Barrett will join the ClearSky board of directors and Andy Champagne, vice president and chief technology officer, Akamai Labs at Akamai Technologies, will join as a board observer.

“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.”

Based in Boston, ClearSky has colocation facilities in Boston, Philadelphia and Las Vegas. The company currently has 40 employees.

Earlier this year, storage startup Scality raised $45 million in a Series D funding round.

This first ran at http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/clearsky-data-raises-27-million-to-scale-enterprise-storage