Cloud Management Startups StrataCloud, Luminal Raise Funding

Two cloud management players announced new funding rounds this morning. Luminal, a company that assists in building and managing cloud infrastructure, landed a $10 million round led by New Enterprise Associates, and StrataCloud, a startup that helps manage VMware-based data center environments, raised $2 million in seed funding, also announcing appointment of a new CEO.

Both companies offer tools and software that aim to make cloud management easier.

Stealthy Luminal does configuration management and more

Luminal is still very much in stealth and is keeping its purpose secretive. It will compete with configuration management tools like Puppet and Chef, but is not limited to configuration management. It will first be available on Amazon Web Services. The company is taking beta customer signups now. Luminal will grow its engineering team with the funding.

“This investment, led by NEA, will allow us to grow our team and expand our beta customer base in advance of general availability of our product,” said Josh Stella, founder and CEO of Luminal. “We’re building solutions from first principles to tackle hard problems in computing, and the strong support we’ve received from NEA, Core Capital, Maryland Venture Fund and our other investors helps make that possible.”

Luminal has raised $13.8 million to date. Previous investors participating in the funding round include Core Capital and the Maryland Venture Fund.

“The complexity of cloud deployments is only increasing with adoption, and there is an escalating need for a cheaper, more scalable way to manage it all,” said Harry Weller, general partner at NEA. “Luminal is developing a radically new approach to cloud architecture that leverages ephemeral components to allow for a higher degree of automation, efficiency and security.”

StrataCloud builds its future around converged infrastructure management

Founded in 2008, StrataCloud tracks and collects data using algorithms to help store it more efficiently. The solution takes a snapshot every 20 seconds to judge efficiency and uses historical data to predict resource needs for applications. It will compete with VMware’s vCenter operation management software itself as well as with another new entrant, Platform9, a company started by former VMware veterans. StrataCloud will use the money to market its software to enterprises.

The company sees converged infrastructure management as its future. In its words, enterprises are moving towards a model for IT in which all elements of an organization's infrastructure, including networking, storage, compute and security, are delivered as a service.

Its customers include Rackspace, various e-trade companies and U.S. intelligence agencies

New CEO Brian Cohen was previously president and CEO at SPI Dynamics, which he sold to HP in 2007.

“Virtual infrastructure is used by most of the world's largest companies, and management of these resources can be complicated and expensive," Cohen said. "We have the most mature product for VMware and compute on the market and a clear vision for how to help companies as they adopt converged solutions that incorporate all infrastructure components. We are anticipating the infrastructure management requirements for a software-defined data center and will be well-positioned as it evolves."