VirtenSys Raises $16 Million

VirtenSys Ltd., a Manchester, UK-based provider of I/O virtualization solutions, has raised $16 million in third-round funding. Return backers include Scottish Equity Partners, Celtic House Venture Partners and GIMV.

PRESS RELEASE

VirtenSys™, Ltd, the leader in delivering innovative PCI Express®-based I/O Virtualization (IOV) switches for data centers, today announced that it has received $16 million in new funding. The funding follows strong customer and end-user traction for the company’s I/O virtualization products, and will be used to grow the company’s revenues and broaden its markets and operations worldwide. Participation in the series C funding round included all of the existing investors: Scottish Equity Partners (SEP), Celtic House Venture Partners (CHVP), and Gimv.

“We have been with the company since the beginning, and we are pleased to see VirtenSys solutions getting so much demand at key server customers,” said Tom Valis, partner at Celtic House. “When we make investments, we look for companies that pursue fundamental innovation as a path to delivering exceptional value in the Information Communications Technology (ICT) sector. VirtenSys has brought to market a product at the right time to serve as a platform to optimize server networking and storage connectivity, and become a catalyst to the next-generation green IT data centers.”

“VirtenSys’ momentum in the market has been very strong and the customers’ feedback has been excellent. Its I/O Virtualization solutions complement standard and virtualized operating systems, and enable faster and easier deployments of traditional and cloud-based applications and services,” said Alex Brabers, executive vice president at Gimv. “This financing is a strong validation of the company’s experienced management team, its differentiated technology, and the great potential that we see in it.”

“With data centers rapidly adopting server virtualization in the pursuit of increased efficiency and simplified manageability, I/O has become a critical bottleneck. VirtenSys’ products solve real needs today and are unique in providing non-disruptive solutions that can be deployed immediately,” said Stuart Paterson, partner at SEP. “Gartner estimates the I/O Virtualization switch opportunity to be worth more than $4 billion per year. The customers’ demand for the company’s products is very impressive and encompasses multiple vertical markets.”

“I am excited by the vote of confidence from our investors and by the breakthrough technology and unique solution that the VirtenSys team developed,” said Ahmet Houssein, president and CEO at VirtenSys. “This funding round follows on the heel of successes at multiple server OEM customers and channel partners, and further signifies the general recognition of the VirtenSys I/O virtualization products as the industry’s best price/performance and lowest energy-usage solutions for the I/O bottleneck in data centers.”

Earlier this month, the company announced that its IOV switches support Ethernet, SAS/SATA and Fibre Channel, providing servers with the most economical and energy efficient connectivity to local area networks (LAN), and the storage infrastructures, including direct-attached storage (DAS) and storage area networks (SAN). With this announcement, VirtenSys became the first company to consolidate and optimize the most commonly deployed networking and storage connectivity in servers. VirtenSys IOV switches create virtualized I/O Clouds where servers’ I/O resources are pooled, consolidated, and dynamically allocated on demand based on application needs. The IOV systems dramatically reduce data center operational expense and complexity, improve I/O utilization to greater than 80 percent, enhance throughput, halve equipment cost and reduce I/O power consumption by more than 60 percent.

About VirtenSys Ltd

VirtenSys develops industry-leading, patented PCI Express®-based I/O virtualization technologies for servers and storage platforms, revolutionizing how I/O infrastructure is deployed and used in data centers, and delivering significant improvements in I/O utilization, cost, performance, power consumption, and management. The deployment of the IOV switches is totally non-disruptive and dramatically reduces IT complexity and expenses. The company was founded in December 2005 by leading technologists in the fields of high-performance switching, networking, and systems design, and is backed by several premier technology venture capital firms. For more information, visit www.virtensys.com.

About Scottish Equity Partners

SEP is one of the largest and most successful venture capital firms in Europe, with more than $500 million under management. With offices in London, SEP focuses on investments in information technology, healthcare and life sciences, and energy-related technology businesses. The specialist sector teams invest in companies throughout the U.K. and Europe, from start-up through to pre-IPO, in financings of up to $50 million. The firm is one of the most experienced in Europe with more than 18 years experience of backing and building world-class businesses. With many successful exits in the form of trade sales and IPOs across Europe, the U.S. and Asia, the SEP team focus on global opportunities from the outset.

In recent years, successes in the semiconductor sector include backing the two largest European exits: Bluetooth specialist CSR, at $2 billion, in which SEP led the last crucial round immediately before the company’s hugely successful flotation, and Wolfson Microelectronics, which reached $750 million, where SEP was involved with the company from the earliest seed round when it spun out of the University of Edinburgh. Our experience of working with companies like these has given SEP a reputation in the industry of identifying companies with high potential at an early stage, and working with them to realize that potential as they face the challenges of building a successful business. Further information on SEP and portfolio companies can be found at www.sep.co.uk.

About Celtic House Venture Partners

Celtic House Venture Partners is a leading venture capital firm dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build high velocity technology companies from the ground up. Since 1994, Celtic House has funded more than 60 companies and committed more than $500 million—more than 70 percent to concept-stage start-ups. By working closely with company management, Celtic House has generated billions in stockholder value and proceeds through 17 successful exits to date, 13 of which were seed-funded by Celtic House. With a history of backing winning teams, including Abatis Systems, Avesta Technologies, Bookham, Extreme Packet Devices, FastLane, NorthChurch, Orchestream, OctigaBay, PixStream, MEMSIC and Sandvine, Celtic House continues to produce superior venture returns in its target regions in Canada and Europe. Today, Celtic House is working with more than 20 active portfolio companies from its offices in Ottawa, Toronto and London, U.K. For further information, visit the Celtic House website at www.celtic-house.com.

About Gimv

Gimv is a listed European investment company with more than 28 years of experience in private equity and venture capital. Gimv’s local buyout teams target small to medium-sized companies in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany. In technology businesses, Gimv provides venture capital to help startups expand or internationalize. Venture capital investments are made in Life Sciences, Technology and Cleantech. As an active partner and coach, Gimv supplies not only financing, but also know-how and experience to the companies in its portfolio, reinforcing and supporting their growth. You can find more information on www.gimv.com.