Panzura Closes Series B Funding Round Led by Khosla Ventures

SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 7, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Panzura, the emerging leader in converged cloud storage and application optimization products, today announced that it has raised $12 million in a Series B funding round led by Khosla Ventures of Menlo Park, California.  Existing Series A investor Matrix Partners also participated in the round.  CTTV Investments LLC, the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, joined the existing investors in this round.

The funding will be used to expand Sales, Marketing and Support operations at Panzura, as well as continuing R&D investment in Panzura's market-leading product line.  These application-aware products are deployed today in Fortune 500 IT organizations across North America, enabling an unprecedented opportunity for cost savings and performance improvements for such mission-critical applications as cloud storage, data backup and disaster recovery, global file sharing and deduplication, and significantly improving the performance of applications such as Microsoft SharePoint.

"No company in the nascent cloud storage space has shown the level of product innovation, sales traction, and customer satisfaction as Panzura," noted Shirish Sathaye, General Partner of Khosla Ventures.  "I look forward to working with the company to extend its already impressive lead in this exciting market."

"Since its inception in 2008, Panzura has shown a remarkable level of innovation and execution," said Andrew Verhalen, General Partner of Matrix Partners.  "Their focus on customer needs has put Panzura head-and-shoulders above the competition in the cloud storage market.  Continuing leadership in R&D will enable them to provide solutions that are more secure and cost effective than existing Tier 1 storage options."

"We are very excited to have the backing of these top-tier investors," states Randy Chou, Co-Founder and CEO of Panzura.  "Our application-aware approach to enterprise storage and application acceleration has created a great deal of customer demand.  This investment, along with the expertise of Khosla, Matrix and Chevron Technology Ventures, will allow us to continue to lead the evolution of this exciting market."

John Hanten, Venture Executive for Chevron Technology Ventures, has joined Panzura's Customer Advisory Board.  

Panzura delivers innovative products that take a unique approach to traditional storage, termed Application Network Storage (ANS).  By combining application logic with storage technology, Panzura is able to provide solutions that are faster, cheaper and more secure than traditional approaches to Tier 1 Storage. 

Email [email protected] or visit http://www.panzura.com for more information.

About Panzura

Panzura is the emerging leader in converged cloud storage and application optimization products.  Founded in 2008 and backed by leading venture firms, Panzura delivers innovative products that take an application-centric rather than network-centric approach to storage, termed Application Network Storage (ANS).  By combining application logic with storage technology, Panzura is able to provide solutions that are faster, cheaper and more secure than traditional approaches to Tier 1 Storage. This revolutionary architecture allows enterprises to save costs, significantly increase performance and secure mission-critical data via public or private cloud environments.

About Khosla Ventures

Khosla Ventures helps entrepreneurs deliver lasting change through technological innovation. The firm, founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs with the audacity to take on what others may call insoluble dilemmas. Khosla Ventures' team members have known the stress of working through a crisis and the thrill of growing an idea into a multi-billion dollar company. The firm leverages that experience to help entrepreneurs turn technological risk into new opportunities. Today Khosla Ventures has one of the largest and broadest clean technology portfolios (including solar, energy storage, nuclear power, wind and high-efficiency engines), as well as holdings in traditional technology sectors such as mobility, Internet and silicon.

About Matrix Partners

Matrix Partners is a premier venture capital firm that has generated outstanding returns for over three decades. The firm has delivered several of the industry's top performing funds of all time. Matrix Partners has offices in Waltham, MA; New York, NY; Palo Alto, CA; Mumbai, India; and Beijing and Shanghai, China. The firm has been fortunate to have invested in game-changing, industry-leading businesses such as Apple Computer, Sandisk, Veritas, Sycamore Networks, Phone.com, Starent Networks, JBoss and Gilt Groupe. Find out more at www.matrixpartners.com.

About CTTV Investments LLC

CTTV Investments LLC, the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, identifies and invests in new technologies and business opportunities that can create value, clear competitive advantage and superior financial returns for Chevron.

©2010 Panzura, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.  Specifications are subject to change without notice.

SOURCE Panzura