CTERA Networks, a cloud storage specialist based in Israel, revealed today that the company had closed on a Series C investment round valued at $25 million.
The infusion of funds will help fuel the CTERA’s global expansion efforts and grow its workforce. In June, the company cut the ribbon on its new U.S. headquarters located in New York City.
Bessemer Venture Partners headlined the deal, with backing from existing investors including Benchmark Capital, Cisco and Venrock. Adam Fisher, a partner at Bessemer, said in prepared remarks that CTERA is at the center of “a wave of disruption transforming how organizations deploy and manage data storage that is propelled by the adoption of centrally delivered and managed, cost-effective, and scalable cloud storage.”
CTERA’s Cloud Storage Services Platform provides enterprise-grade endpoint backup along with file sync and share capabilities. The firm’s gateway appliances link corporate storage environments to cloud storage providers. The result is a centrally managed product that “that is 100 percent secure and deployable on the cloud infrastructure of their choice,” boasts the company.
CTERA had an early start in the cloud-based business storage and backup market with its CloudPlug hardware, which debuted in early 2009. The device, about the size of AC power adapter, enabled SMBs to turn USB flash drives into NAS devices with automated, cloud-enabled backup capabilities.
The company has loftier ambitions for its approach, dubbed “Cloud Attached Storage” by its founder and CEO, Liran Eshel. Now, he reports that CTERA’s strategy is paying off.
Eshel’s company “was founded on the belief that organizations will need to control their cloud agenda by delivering secure storage services from the clouds of their choice,” he said in a statement. “Every day, we’re inspired by our enterprise and service provider customers who are enabling users to modernize the way they sync, serve, and protect data.”
In total, CTERA’s tech is used by 21,000 businesses. Over 30,000 CTERA Cloud Storage Gateways have been shipped to date, reported the company. Customers include Telefonica, a Spanish telecommunications company, Swisscom and Ricoh Canada.
CTERA isn’t the only company to harness the cloud to provide enterprise file storage, sync and sharing capabilities. A long list of competitors includes EMC Syncplicity, Citrix ShareFile, Egnyte Business File Sharing and Acronis activEcho.
