Monday, September 15, 2008

Local VCs funnel $8M to fund virtualized cloud computing

By Mass High Tech Staff

Kodiak Venture Partners and Venrock have joined in an $8 million round of financing in a New York-based company making a virtualized cloud computing platform for online advertising applications, according to a regulatory filing.

AppNexus offers datacenters on the east coast and the west coast, virtualization services, network storage, security and support.

Other investors joining in the financing include First Round Capital and Khosla Ventures.

Earler this month, Kodiak participated in a $20 million Series D round of funding for North Carolina-based ChannelAdvisor Corp. ChannelAdvisor, a provider of e-commerce channel management solutions, also plans to implement a restructuring plan to streamline operations and accelerate the company’s path to profitability. The plan includes laying off 70 of its 350 employees.

Waltham-based Kodiak’s portfolio includes companies such as Azimuth Systems Inc., GlassHouse Technologies Inc. and Groove Mobile Inc.    
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Venrock has an office in Cambridge. Its portfolio includes such giants as Apple Inc. and Intel Corp. as well as local startups like battery maker Boston-Power Inc. and biotech Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The companies have both joined in a total of $16.5 million in financing for Boston-based location technology company uLocate Communications Inc.

In July, Venrock’s David Beisel was named a finalist for The Mass Technology Leadership Council’s Investor of the Year award.