Nirvanix, the premier “Cloud Storage” platform provider, today announced that it has received funding from European Founders Fund, a top tier German venture capital firm with an enviable record of success in launching Internet ventures and a strong network of business relationships throughout the continent.
Nirvanix plans to use the investment money to fund its European expansion, leveraging its innovative Storage Delivery Network (SDN) platform. The market expertise and customer contacts of the European Founders partners are expected to accelerate Nirvanix’s visibility and business development in the European market. In January, Nirvanix announced the opening of an additional storage node in Europe, increasing its network footprint and enabling the intelligent storage and movement of files, guaranteeing the best performance and end user experience on a global scale. These new storage nodes have accelerated the Nirvanix performance advantage to the point where the SDN customers in Europe will enjoy 400% faster download speeds for large files on average over competing services, as measured by Webmetrics.
“This strategic investment from EFF allows us to capitalise on the tremendous market opportunity for cloud storage, particularly for digital media and online archive/backup storage, and accelerate our strong growth in Europe where today approximately 50 percent of our customers reside,” said Patrick Harr, CEO at Nirvanix. “Just as important as the financial impact is EFF’s strong network in our media rich target market coupled with their tremendous entrepreneurial track record and investments in well known Internet companies. The Samwer brothers have invested in companies such as FaceBook, LinkedIn, and the leading social, media and auction networks in Europe, which are a perfect combination in establishing Nirvanix as the de-facto cloud storage platform in Europe.”
“We’re excited to add Nirvanix to our portfolio of innovators with the potential to dominate markets,” said Alexander Samwer, a managing partner at European Founders. “Europe is absolutely primed for a radical cost-saving technology such as the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network and we are well positioned to help guide the company in exploiting the abundant market opportunities throughout the continent.”
With its aggressive move into Europe, Nirvanix is targeting the world’s largest single economic opportunity with the GDP for the European Union predicted to reach $17.8 trillion this year, almost 25 percent larger than that of the U.S.
Nirvanix has made a major splash in the industry since emerging from stealth mode last year. The company has been named one of the “Top 10 Startups to Watch” by storage networking website Byte and Switch, which also designated the Storage Delivery Network as one of the “Top 10 Storage Products of 2007.” Additionally, Nirvanix has been named a finalist for a CODiE Award by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) in the Best Storage Software Solution category.
