Racktivity Secures $8 Million in Series B Funding to Accelerate Growth and Innovations in Data Center Energy and Uptime Management

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Dec. 1, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Racktivity, an innovator in next-generation energy and uptime management solutions for data centers, today announced the closing of an $8 million Series B round of financing led by Partech International, with the participation of existing investor Big Bang Ventures. The funds will be used to accelerate Racktivity's product, technology and market development initiatives. Racktivity also announced today the opening of its U.S. headquarters in Redwood City, California.

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While establishing and expanding its sales presence in the U.S. and Europe, Racktivity plans to deliver its Rack Controller power distribution unit (PDU), integrated with the company's comprehensive energy and uptime management software platform, to the U.S. market during the first quarter of 2011. Racktivity's integrated solutions are intended to substantially improve uptime and reduce energy consumption, costs and carbon emissions of data centers.

"Racktivity's management team has a well-established track record of innovating, building and growing successful companies. We believe the team's compelling vision for the next-generation power distribution framework brings new levels of energy savings and uptime improvements to data centers," said Nicolas El Baze, a general partner at Partech International, a leading venture capital firm that has been investing in IT innovators in the U.S. and Europe for more than two decades. El Baze will join Racktivity's board, along with Ashish Puri, a principal of Partech International.

"We are delighted to be partnering with a top global venture firm like Partech," said Marco DeMiroz, president and CEO of Racktivity.  "We focus on the physical layer of the cloud, combining advanced PDUs with an open and extensible software platform to reduce energy consumption and improve uptime by measuring and managing their power use — while seamlessly integrating with data center applications."

Racktivity launched its Rack Controller PDUs in Europe during the summer of 2010 and received strong customer adoption as demonstrated by the addition of brand names such as Combell, Terremark Europe, Zenith Infotech Ltd., and others.

Combell, a leading data center hosting company serving the Benelux, has been an early adopter of Racktivity PDUs. "By using the Rack Controller, we have lowered our total cost of ownership by 65 percent and no longer need to purchase three devices to do the same thing — with the added benefit of much lower power consumption," said Benjamin Jacobs, Combell CTO.

In November, Racktivity announced that Ed Sterbenc, an accomplished sales executive with a track record of driving growth and profitability in global enterprise IT markets, has joined the company as vice president of worldwide sales.

About Racktivity

Racktivity, an innovator in next-generation energy and uptime management solutions for data centers, offers smart power distribution units that deliver real-time analytics with extreme accuracy. The Rack Controller is the only PDU to provide real-time data at unsurpassed measurement rates, which makes it possible for facilities and IT managers to be alerted instantly to prevent potential problems that could impact uptime. Racktivity's software platform will provide innovations to monitor and manage detailed energy consumption of data center assets. Racktivity was founded in 2009 in Ghent, Belgium, by Wilbert Ingels, an experienced executive in data center technologies, and received seed funding by Kristof De Spiegeleer, serial entrepreneur and visionary. The company's global headquarters is located in Redwood City, California. For more information, go to www.racktivity.com.

About Partech International

Founded in 1982, Partech International is a leading global venture capital firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Israel. With $800M under active management, its investment team focuses exclusively on Information Technology. Specific areas where we invest include Software & Internet, and Communications & Components. In each of these sectors, Partech diligently sources companies with high return potential and disruptive technologies. Partech's successful "International Venture Model" has been instrumental in building innovative start-ups into global leaders. Some of its globally successful portfolio companies include: Ascend Communications, Alvarion, Business Objects, Cadence, CSG Systems, Digital Island, Informatica, Pentasafe, VeriFone and Vignette. For more information, go to www.partechventure.com.

About Big Bang Ventures

Big Bang Ventures is a seed and early-stage venture capital fund for high-growth ICT companies.  In addition to funding, Big Bang Ventures leverages its extensive operational experience and worldwide network to actively help start-ups accelerate their growth. Formed in 2000, Big Bang Ventures has offices in Antwerp, London and Istanbul. Past investments include Avinity (acquired by ActiveVideo Networks); DataCenterTechnologies (acquired by Symantec); Dedigate (acquired by Terremark); Q-layer (acquired by Sun Microsystems) and Clear2Pay, a leading payments technology company. For more information, go to www.bbv.be.

Racktivity and Racktivity Rack Controller are trademarks of Racktivity. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Racktivity