Nexsan Secures $17 Million Financing VantagePoint Venture Partners Leads Investment in Leading Storage Solution Provider
WOODLAND HILLS, Calif., December 16, 2003 - Nexsan Technologies, the leader in innovative storage solutions, today announced that it has secured $17 million in venture capital funding, led by VantagePoint Venture Partners, one of the most active investors in the industry with more than $2.5 billion in capital under management. RRE Ventures, Gesfid First Gen-e and a syndicate of individual investors formed by Beechtree Capital also participated in the round. Nexsan will use funds to continue to expand its rapidly growing global business.
"Nexsan's continued success in the storage marketplace necessitated further investment to help us expand our business to keep up with the unprecedented volume of orders from customers around the world," said Martin Boddy, CEO of Nexsan Technologies. "Our investment partners share the same belief in our ability to continue designing and developing innovative storage solutions at the cost-correct prices customers desire."
Nexsan's innovative storage line has garnered several prestigious industry awards, including Storage Magazine's Product of the Year, and has been deployed by thousands of users worldwide. Most recently the ATABeastT, an enterprise-class RAID array built around the latest ATA technology from Nexsan and high capacity ATA disk drives, was named Best of Comdex 2003 in the Enterprise Hardware category. The company also recently delivered the ATAbabyT Twins, which offer the flexibility of deploying a system as a local disk-to-disk backup device or at a remote site to support long-distance backup or remote data replication over IP or DSL connections.
"Having researched the storage hardware and services market for the past year, we believe that Nexsan has emerged as an important company with strong leadership and customer relationships," said David Fries, Managing Director, VantagePoint Venture Partners.
"RRE Ventures invests in companies that offer innovative technologies for markets with high growth potential," said Rich McGinn, general Partner of RRE Ventures and former Chairman and CEO of Lucent Technologies. "We are pleased with Nexsan's focus on the enterprise storage market and disk-to-disk backup."
"Gesfid is happy to participate in another opportunity to assist Nexsan in expanding its leadership in the storage market," said Domenico Grassi, senior advisor of Gesfid First Gen-e. "We have all assurances that the company will continue to dominate cost-correct networked storage and data security."
About Nexsan Technologies
Nexsan Technologies, headquartered in Woodland Hills, Calif. is the leader in innovative and correct cost storage solutions. The company creates and delivers award-winning, storage-centric hardware and application-based solutions worldwide through one of the most diverse and established networks of professionals in the storage industry. Next generation Nexsan storage products are designed for corporate, graphics, medical imaging, animation and special effects, real time/event monitored/ on-line/off-site storage, Internet delivered content, digital film and video, financial on-line transaction data, music and voice, video security, and document imaging. For more information, please see the company's website at http://www.nexsan.com.
About VantagePoint Venture Partners
With $2.5 billion in capital under management, VantagePoint Venture Partners is one the largest and most active venture capital firms that works directly with management teams and its strategic partners to build technology leaders. As an active multi-stage investor, the Firm provides funding and resources for all stages of a company's lifecycle from seed round through late stage and privately negotiated investments in public companies. VantagePoint is based on a full-service 'Partner-Team' approach that provides entrepreneurs with a blend of technology, venture capital, operations, and corporate-finance expertise. As hands-on investors, the Firm is focused on technology investments in communications, semiconductor, software, internet, CleanTech and Healthcare Commerce sectors.
About RRE Ventures
RRE Ventures, a New York-based venture capital firm, was founded in 1994 by Jim Robinson III, Jim Robinson IV and Stuart Ellman. RRE invests in entrepreneurial information technology companies, placing special emphasis on software, communications and related enterprises that can become industry leaders in rapidly growing markets. With over $600 million under management, RRE combines significant capital resources with managerial, financial and technical experience and corporate contacts to create value for its portfolio companies. The firm leverages these assets to establish business and financial relationships, provide strategic direction and develop both domestic and international sales and marketing opportunities. RRE has helped build over sixty companies, including WatchGuard (WRGD), Vastera (VAST), Ember Corporation, SavaJe Tachnologies, Frictionless Commerce, MontaVista, ReefEdge and Vocera.
About Gesfid First Gen-e
Gesfid First Gen-e, a Lugano, Switzerland based venture capital firm, was founded in 2000 by Gesfid, a primary private banking institution in Switzerland, and Meliorbanca, an Italian merchant bank. First Gen-e invests in IT companies with a focus on software, communications, hardware, and Internet distribution companies that can grow rapidly in the marketplace. First Gen-e manages over 60 M Euros, combining capital resources with the managerial and financial experience of its managers to participate in the business of its companies. First Gen-e portfolio companies include Clust, a major Internet distributor in France, Eurotech, the leader in Italy for Industrial PC production and RGM, a European leader in power supply production. Gesfid has partnered with Beechtree Capital in past rounds and in overseeing the early development of the Company. ### |
