Akorri Raises $10 Million To Continue Virtualization, Cloud Channel Push
Littleton, Mass.-based Akorri makes virtual IT infrastructure management software, a cornerstone for cloud computing environments. In an SEC filing this week, Akorri reported the new investment from Montagu Newhall Associates, a new investor. All told, the latest bump brings Akorri's total venture investment to well over $58.5 million since the company was founded in 2005.
Akorri President and CEO Allan Wallack, who joined the Akorri team earlier this year, said the recent $10 in funding coupled with the $5 million Akorri brought in last summer shows that investors are hot on the cloud computing and virtualization markets.
"It shows the market is ready and it's growing," Wallack said.
Wallack said Akorri will use the most recent investment to focus on sales and marketing efforts. As a 100 percent channel company, that means Akorri's more than 100 partners will benefit from the boost.
"We're going to spend a good chunk of this on our sales organization," he said. "We're going to build and support and continue to invest in channel marketing programs and in the field."
Wallack added that some of the funds will also be earmarked for engineering.
Akorri officially launched its PartnerPoint channel program last year. And in six months its channel program grew 120 percent and added more than 30 new partners. The tiered PartnerPoint program helped fuel strong revenue growth for Akorri.
While Wallack wouldn't divulge revenue numbers, he said the company showed 134 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2009 over the same quarter in 2008 and revenue continues to increase quarter over quarter.
According to Wallack, the market is ripe for Akorri and its BalancePoint virtual infrastructure management software, which provides analysis across virtualization layers and technology silos for virtual and physical server and storage infrastructures. And the timing couldn't be better as cloud computing is on the tip of many tongues. Wallack said Akorri plays a critical role in virtualization management in production environments, which is a building block to the cloud.
"Even though the cloud is in its early stages, and because the definition is vague, there's a lot of opportunity in helping define what the cloud is," he said. "Our focus is to be a key element in the management of virtual systems and to be connected to major cloud players."