Monday, March 26, 2007

VaultLogix builds up war chest with new round

By Christopher Calnan

Corporate data backup provider VaultLogix Inc. closed this month on a Series C round of equity funding that company officials said is designed to take advantage of any acquisition prospects as it continues to grow.

New Jersey-based angel investor Mark Munro, the founder and former CEO of Broadmoor Capital Partners LLC (also in New Jersey), confirmed the Series C round, but declined to disclose its amount. He had invested about $2 million in previous financing rounds and said the latest investment is intended to provide VaultLogix with cash to fund acquisitions.

But Monro said Ipswich-based VaultLogix is operating profitably and growing fast enough without the new capital. "We don't need that to grow organically," he said. "We did it by choice."

The company, founded by CEO Tim Hannibal in 2003, is adding employees and plans to open an office on the South Shore this year. Hannibal expects VaultLogix to reach 26 employees by the end of the year, up from 19.

Hannibal, the former vice president of sales for BiznessOnline.com Inc., got the idea for a data-backup product in 2002 as a way to generate revenue from BiznessOnline data centers during downtime, from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m.

When that company subsequently restructured and moved operations to Florida, Hannibal founded VaultLogix and initially operated it from his basement. It now operates data centers in Holyoke, Marlborough and Worcester.

VaultLogix has been profitable since 2005, Hannibal said.

About a dozen small backup companies such as VaultLogix operate in New England, said Stephanie Balaouras, a senior analyst for Cambridge-based Forrester Research Inc.

Among them are Diligent Technologies Corp. in Framingham, Double-Take Software Inc. in Southborough, Marathon Technologies Corp. in Littleton and Incipient Inc. in Waltham.