Flash-based storage leader WhipTail secures series B funding round

WHIPPANY, USA: WhipTail, maker of the world’s first and most widely deployed all-flash enterprise class storage array, has secured a Series B round of funding to continue to fuel its accelerated growth in the global IT marketplace. New York-based venture capital firm RRE Ventures led the round, with Ignition Partners and Spring Mountain Capital also participating.

“For the past decade, data storage performance has not kept pace with the continuing evolution of technology the way CPUs and networks have. And with the increasing demand for storage it doesn’t make sense for companies to just buy more capacity,” said Will Porteous, general partner of RRE Ventures. “Instead of continuing to add more hard disks, IT executives need to look at the storage solution WhipTail brings to the table. The company is selling performance, which is a valuable proposition to the enterprise. I look forward to joining the board of this truly innovative company.”

Over 100 customers, including AMD (see today’s press release), The Pension’s Trust, Ohio.gov, Weichert and inVentiv Health have installed WhipTail’s enterprise flash storage array to address performance problems in the enterprise. Once installed, customers come back for more arrays to support additional applications – over a third of the company’s revenue comes from repeat business.

"WhipTail is the only company to have delivered all-flash-based storage arrays to the commercial and enterprise IT environments for the last two years, pure and simple,” said Dan Crain, CEO, WhipTail. “We have been quietly executing for some time, addressing the storage bottleneck for high performance enterprise applications. This funding will help us continue to innovate and lead the solid state storage market, as well asturn up the volume on the key advantages we deliver.”

“We are excited about WhipTail’s remarkable progress, and to be able to add such a distinguished group of investors to WhipTail’s board as are Will Porteous of RRE Ventures and Richard Fade of Ignition Partners,” commented Raymond Wong, MD and head of Spring Mountain Capital’s private equity group.

WhipTail will use the financing to expand the company’s sales and marketing efforts, as well as support additional product development. Sales efforts are being ramped up in the US, Europe and Asia through hiring, strategic partnerships, reseller programs and marketing support to the channel.

In addition to Porteous, Ignition’s Richard Fade will join Spring Mountain Capital’s Raymond Wong and Avi Faliks on the WhipTail board of directors, effective immediately. Spring Mountain Capital has been a majority investor in WhipTail since July 2011, when it led the company’s first round of financing.

“We believe WhipTail’s technology is at the forefront of all-flash-based storage arrays, the new standard for the industry,” said Richard Fade, partner, Ignition Partners.