SOURCE: Akimbi Systems

November 01, 2005 13:30 ET

Akimbi Systems Secures $8 Million in Series B Funding

New Round Underscores Akimbi's Initial Success and Growing Momentum

SAN MATEO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- November 1, 2005 -- Akimbi Systems, a developer of virtual infrastructure management solutions, today announced it has secured $8 million in Series B funding. Mayfield Fund led the round, with increased participation from initial investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Partech International. In response to higher than anticipated market demand for its solutions, Akimbi will use the capital to accelerate its go-to-market and product development efforts.

"Virtualization technology is fundamentally altering the economics of building and operating enterprise data centers, and the software that runs in them. Akimbi will play an important role in driving this technology into the mainstream," said Robin Vasan, managing director at Mayfield Fund. "Akimbi has had an incredibly strong start -- assembling a talented executive team; delivering a compelling initial product offering; establishing strong, meaningful industry partnerships; rapidly acquiring customers; and building revenue momentum. And with the benefit of insight into their roadmap, we anticipate they will emerge as a leader in the virtual infrastructure management market."

Launched in September, Akimbi Systems is a provider of virtual infrastructure management solutions with its initial offerings optimized for use by software development and test organizations. Akimbi's complex configuration capture-and-restore (C3R) system, Akimbi Slingshot™, is purpose built for use by software development and test teams in Global 2000 enterprises and packaged software and systems companies. Akimbi Slingshot is employed by many of the world's most effective software development organizations, enabling them to shave months off software development projects, reduce development and test equipment costs and dramatically increase the quality of delivered software systems.

"This funding further validates our strategy and growing leadership position as we leverage virtualization technology from Microsoft and VMware to deliver solutions that address overwhelming challenges faced by software development and test organizations," said James Phillips, Akimbi CEO and co-founder. "Today's announcement is reflective of Akimbi's potential to capitalize on the outstanding growth projected for the virtualization industry, and puts Akimbi in a position to accelerate its product and market development activities."

Akimbi has continued to show momentum since its launch, most recently announcing an agreement with PlateSpin, under which Akimbi integrated PlateSpin's OS Portability™ technology into Akimbi Slingshot. This partnership enables customers to more quickly integrate a C3R solution into their software development and test processes and infrastructure, resulting in higher-quality software systems, built more rapidly and at a lower total cost. Akimbi Slingshot is the only commercial C3R system capable of the automated movement of complex, multi-machine software configurations across the physical-virtual infrastructure boundary.

About Akimbi Systems

Akimbi Systems develops virtual infrastructure management solutions optimized for use by software development and test teams in Global 2000 enterprises and software and system development companies. Akimbi's complex configuration capture-and-restore (C3R) system, Akimbi Slingshot™, automates the rapid creation, capture, storage, sharing and restoration of even the most complex multi-machine software configurations to a shared pool of servers, enabling organizations to shave months off software development projects, while reducing development and test equipment costs. Headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., Akimbi has received funding from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, Partech International and Stanford University. Customers include Cast Iron Systems, Ensim Corporation, Juniper Networks, Mimosa Systems, Scientific Technologies Corporation, SolidCore Systems, Teneros, and the University of Waterloo. Strategic partners include Mercury, Microsoft, PlateSpin and VMware. For more information, visit www.akimbi.com.

About Mayfield Fund

Mayfield Fund provides "venture capital with impact" and shows leadership in early-stage venture investing by partnering with exceptional individuals to create industry-leading companies. Mayfield has deep domain expertise in consumer Internet technology, communications/mobility and enterprise software. Since Mayfield's founding in 1969, the firm has invested in more than 460 high-growth, technology companies, and taken over 100 public. For more information, please visit www.mayfield.com.

About Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

In 1989, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was created as the first venture capital firm focused exclusively on software. As the software industry has grown from PC software to enterprise computing to Internet applications, Hummer Winblad has been at the forefront-funding the entrepreneurs and ideas that helped define these markets. For more information on Hummer Winblad, visit www.humwin.com.

About Partech International

Founded in 1982, Partech International (www.partechvc.com) is a leading global venture capital firm with $850M under active management and offices in the U.S., Europe and Israel. Partech invests exclusively in Information Technology and the firm's internationally integrated team of investing partners work together closely to find the most innovative companies demonstrating high return potential and disruptive technologies in the Software & Internet, Communications & Components and Healthcare IT sectors. Partech has a unique 20+ year track record assisting its portfolio companies to become global market leaders.