Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: Cloud Computing/SaaS (Page 5 of 15)

MN-Based Cloud Startup enStratus Secures Series A VC Investment

November 3, 2011 / / 3 Comments

An SEC filing reported by MarketBrief has revealed that Minneapolis-based enStratus Networks has raised $3.5 million in venture capital. The total size of the round is $4.5 million, a reliable source told me, but the investor for the additional $1 million has not yet been announced. EnStratus-logo

Founded in 2009, enStratus provides a cloud infrastructure management solution for deploying and managing enterprise-class applications in public, private, and hybrid clouds. It counts among its customers Korea Telcom (KT), SAIC, Predictix, Quantum Retail, and The Cloud Security Alliance.

I confirmed that the lead investor is El Dorado Ventures of Menlo Park, California. General Partner Jeff Hinck, based here in Minneapolis, is joining the enStratus board of directors.

More to come as I learn about it, which will likely be next week, in conjunction with enStratus' appearances at two key industry events: Defrag in Denver and Cloud Expo in Santa Clara.

In another recent enStratus development, James Urquhart, a cloud strategist and evangelist at Cisco, revealed on his Twitter page on October 28 that he would be leaving Cisco to join enStratus as VP of Product Strategy.

UPDATE: I confirmed this morning (Nov 4) that the SEC filing only appeared yesterday as the result of an accidental early submission. A formal news release from enStratus announcing the Series A may come as early as Monday, presumably identifying the other investor.

(Disclosure: The writer was a consultant to enStratus during its launch phase.)


DEMO Fall: a chat with Abhi Chauduri, Director-Products & UX, Whodini

September 20, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Here's what I wrote about these guys on my live blog in real-time, as they presented on-stage…

Whodini (Los Altos, CA) definitely gets one of the coolest name awards. Its software automates the discovery of expert coworkers. It plugs into email clients and reduces important emails to core topics, representing expertise. Topics are then securely uploaded to the cloud and put through algorithms comparing them to the entire company and creating the user's "enterprise work profile." Recently closed a $2 million Series A with angel investors.

DEMO Fall: a chat with Dani Alyamour, CEO/Founder, Looping

September 20, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Apologies for the sound quality on this one. It seems the FlipHD mic is not the greatest for picking up an interviewee three feet away in an open, noisy showfloor like this. (Note: this is my first conference recording with a Flip.) Also, in the middle of the interview, my subject can't get a network on his cell phone, so he switches to another one. I would have edited that out, but I'm about as good at video editing as I am as Dancing With the Stars. So, hey, this is it!

Here's what I live-blogged about Looping in real-time when Dani was on-stage (my entire live-blog of DEMO Fall is here) ….

Looping.com from Imovation (SF) lets any business build a loyalty program, allowing customers to collect points and redeem awards with only a mobile phone! — and it works with any kind of phone, not just smartphones. No more carrying loyalty cards! There's no NFC, nothing to install, no data plans, no GPS, no camera required…"no problem!" This is very cool, an impressive product — I saw it live-demoed earlier, and the founder did a knock-out job of explaining it inside of six minutes.

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