ELASTRA Closes $12 Million In Series B Financing
Financial Backing from Amazon.com, Bay Partners and Hummer Winblad Solidifies Elastra’s Position as a Leading Provider of Application Management Software for Public and Private Compute Clouds
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., August 5, 2008 – ELASTRA Corporation, the leading provider of software for configuring, deploying and managing complete application systems in public and private compute clouds, today announced it has closed $12 million in Series B financing. The round was led by Bay Partners, with new participation from Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and continued participation from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Neal Dempsey of Bay Partners will be joining ELASTRA’s board. ELASTRA will use the funds to accelerate customer growth and further develop its software for public and private cloud computing.
“For over two years Amazon Web Services has provided infrastructure services that help companies of all sizes—from small startups to larger enterprises—realize the cost, time, and scaling efficiencies of cloud computing. We believe that cloud computing will continue to grow into a large industry with companies providing a range of different services,” said Jeff Blackburn, Amazon.com Senior Vice President for Business Development. “ELASTRA has an experienced team with a unique software approach that helps enterprise companies realize the benefits of cloud computing.”
ELASTRA Cloud Server provides point-and-click configuration, push-button deployment and automated management and dynamic monitoring of application infrastructure software and systems. ELASTRA’s ECML and EDML mark-up languages allow for extensibility and portability of applications across public and private clouds. Businesses and IT organizations do not want to script, monitor and scale their application infrastructure by hand, nor do they want to be locked into “cloud silos” from a single provider. Instead, they want deployment and design flexibility while they focus their engineering and operational efforts on business-differentiating activities and investments that drive innovation, new revenue streams and operational efficiency. ELASTRA’s products help them achieve these goals.
“We took a hard look at the value businesses see in cloud computing. It was clear that enterprises need a complete and integrated way to manage entire applications in cloud environments. We feel ELASTRA has set their sights on the right segment of the market – enterprises whose applications need a holistic, architected approach to managing cloud-based systems rather than libraries of machines that are tied together with random scripts,” said Neal Dempsey, Partner, Bay Partners. “Elastra’s management team consists of seasoned professionals with an enterprise software background who have built software companies before. We are excited to back this group and support them in bringing their product to an untapped and eager market segment.”
“Elastra’s vision and roadmap are ambitious,” said Kirill Sheynkman, Founder and CEO of ELASTRA. “Enterprises are moving into the cloud and understand its financial value, but they need software that lets them deploy and manage applications that meet complex requirements. Creating this software, and doing it right requires a lot of work from many talented people. I am happy to rely on the backing of such outstanding investors and market pioneers as Elastra delivers the product functionality and robustness our customers demand.”
About ELASTRA
ELASTRA provides software for designing, deploying, and managing complete application systems in public and private cloud computing environments. Our products simplify and automate the complex processes associated with database and application infrastructure configuration, deployment and management, while elastically-scaling sophisticated application systems up and down based on computing need. For companies building applications ELASTRA removes the cost, complexity and resource-drain of owning, scaling and managing databases and the underlying infrastructure, and allows customers to realize the true value of cloud computing. For more about ELASTRA, visit us on the Web at www.elastra.com.
Amazon Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, significant amount of indebtedness, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, and subsequent filings.
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MEDIA CONTACTS:
Ariane Lindblom
ELASTRA Corporation
415/692-3120
arianel@elastra.com
Katie Watson
Voce Communications
415/848-2589
kwatson@vocecomm.com
