Hyperconverged infrastructure company SimpliVity has raised $175-million in series D funding at a valuation of more than $1-billion – a record achievement, coming just 23 months after general availability of its flagship product OmniCube.
Waypoint Capital, the business enterprise for the Bertarelli family’s investments and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, led the round. Prior investors Accel Partners, Charles River Ventures, DFJ Growth, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Meritech Capital Partners also contributed to the round. SimpliVity’s total venture funding is now $276-million.
Waypoint was inspired to make the investment after transforming its own IT environments across five global sites with SimpliVity’s hyper-converged infrastructure solution.
“As a customer, we experienced first-hand the transformational impact of SimpliVity’s hyper-converged infrastructure. After a thorough analysis of alternatives, we were convinced SimpliVity is technologically superior, and that its unique data architecture is years ahead of the market,” says Frederic Wohlwend, chief information and technology officer at Waypoint Capital. “When we learned SimpliVity was raising capital, we insisted on taking the lead. We see enormous potential in a company revolutionizing IT, and growing faster than any infrastructure company in recent history.”
Dorn Kempel, CEO of SimpliVity, comments: “We are honoured to have Waypoint join our extremely supportive group of investors. It is a unique and valuable opportunity to have an investor who is truly a customer first – with hands-on SimpliVity product experience.
“The continued support from our existing investors is incredibly appreciated. Together, these investors give us the greatest strategic latitude for the business as we continue to optimize during this time of hyper growth.”
The financing will be used to fund the rapid expansion of the company and address the explosive market opportunity. Gartner predicts total integrated system spending will grow by a 24% CAGR from 2013 through 2018, reaching a total of $19-billion.
SimpliVity launched its hyper-converged infrastructure platform in April 2013 and delivered record growth in 2014. In 2014, SimpliVity grew revenues by more than 500% year over year; expanded with resellers into 50 countries and employees in 18; and grew its employee base to more than 400 worldwide. SimpliVity also partnered with Cisco in August 2014 in order to expand its global reach.
Morgan Stanley served as the sole placement agent for SimpliVity.
