CloudByte raises $2.1M in Series A funding led by Nexus

CloudByte Inc, a one-year-old Cloud startup focusing on storage virtualisation, has raised Series A funding of $2.1 million, led by Nexus Venture Partners. Kae Capital also participated in the round.

CloudByte was started in 2011 by a team of five – Srivibhavan Balaram, Umasankar Mukkara, Shailesh Bam, Felix Xavier and Sunil Navalgi.

The funding would be used to expand sales in the US and the Asian markets, and also for ongoing product development. A part of the funding would be also used in hiring talents for its India and US offices. CloudByte is headquartered in California, with its engineering team based in Bangalore, and has another office in Singapore.

Sandeep Singhal, co-founder of Nexus Venture Partners, said, "To maximise the benefit they gain from server virtualisation, enterprises and service providers are seeking cost-effective solutions to improve storage utilisation without impacting performance. CloudByte founders have built a world class product to address this issue. At Nexus, we look to back companies that address infrastructure pain points in the migration to the Cloud and we are excited about partnering with CloudByte."

The co-founders of CloudByte come from a technical background and earlier worked with some of the leading tech companies. Balaram, an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Bangalore, previously worked with companies like NIIT, CMC, TCS, National Informatics Center, Hughes Network Systems, Symphony Services, SAP and Novell in various capacities. A passout from Illinois Institute of Technology, Mukkara worked with Infosys and Novell. Bam, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, earlier worked with TCS, Wipro, HP and Symphony Services. Xavier also worked with companies like NetApp, Juniper Networks and Novell. A BE from Karnataka University, Navalgi previously worked with Business Objects, Thomson and Amazon.

Co-founder and CEO Balaram said, "CloudByte delivers storage virtualisation solutions so that enterprises and Cloud service providers can reap the full benefits of a virtualised data centre. With Nexus's experience in backing successful Cloud and storage companies like Cloud.com and Gluster, we see them as great partners. And we also thank Kae capital for trusting us and investing in our future."