Maxta, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based storage software startup, today announced that the company has raised $25 million. The Series B round of funding was led by Intel Capital, the giant chipmaker’s venture capital arm, and Tenaya Capital, with participation from existing investor Andreessen Horowitz.
Headed by CEO and founder Yoram Novick, the company emerged from stealth last November with its Maxta Storage Platform (MxSP) software. MxSP is a hypervisor agnostic platform that pools server-side storage (SSDs, flash PCIe cards and HDDs) to provide SAN-like functionality without the investment in added storage infrastructure.
“We eliminate storage arrays,” Novick told InfoStor during the company’s public debut. In addition, MxSP supports data deduplication, inline compression, snapshots and replication, among other enterprise-grade data storage capabilities.
Novick’s startup is among several storage companies vying for a piece of the growing market for software-defined storage (SDS) solutions. Often synonymous with virtualized storage, vendors of SDS products generally aim to bust storage silos and provide enterprises with a robust, global data management platform.
Competitors run the gamut from established IT stalwarts to innovative new startups. HP has emerged as a major SDS vendor, thanks to its StoreVirtual products and the company’s acquisition of Left Hand Networks. Startups include OSNexus, Nexenta and Nutanix.
Maxta plans to use the funds to accelerate company’s product development, marketing, sales and support initiatives. Plans also include working with Intel to optimize the MxSP platform for systems anchored by the processor manufacturer’s chips, providing the storage piece of the software-defined data center puzzle.
“Having Intel, a world-class technology leader, work with Maxta to provide customers the most efficient storage solution for the virtual data center supports the approach we are delivering to the enterprise storage marketplace, and realization of the tremendous benefits of software-defined storage,” said Novick, former CEO of Topio (acquired by NetApp in 2006), in prepared remarks. He added that his startup will have access to Intel’s engineering and marketing smarts “to provide superior VM-centric storage solutions.”
For Intel, the investment also helps pave the way for its vision of the adaptable virtual data center. Bev Crair, general manager of Intel’s Storage Division, asserted in a statement that “Maxta’s VM-centric storage platform provides customers a highly efficient alternative to traditional storage.”
“By optimizing the Maxta technology for Intel platforms, we help deliver next-generation storage solutions for Intel-based platforms that reduce operational complexity and streamline IT,” added Crair.