Monday, September 28, 2009

Data center firm Egenera lands $3M in VC funds

By Galen Moore

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Egenera Inc.  has taken in $3 million of new venture capital in a follow-on equity round from its existing investors, company officials confirmed this morning.

The new funding brings total investment in Marlborough-based Egenera, which makes data center virtualization hardware and software, to at least $180 million. The company plans to use the funds to boost its efforts to create channel sales relationships for its server fault-tolerance and high-availability products, such as the relationship it inked early last year with Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL), said chief marketing officer Christine Crandell.

“We are a company that’s in the middle of a transformation,” she said. “We view this recession as a unique opportunity to move from being a hardware-only company to being a software-centric company.”

In the past two quarters, the Dell deal has brought Egenera nine customer wins, including the U.S. Veterans Administration and Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT), Crandell said.

“We feel as if that relationship has reached the point of a repeatable sales model,” she said. “For us, that was our trigger for now looking to expand into new channels.”

Those new channels may be with hardware providers similar to Dell — or may involve other categories, such as software and equipment resellers. The company currently has an OEM relationship with Aptis Technology Solutions, a Virginia-based reseller.

Last November, Egenera cut 87 jobs, reducing its worldwide headcount by 28 percent, and announced its plans to focus more on software and channel sales.

Egenera’s latest funding was first reported in regulatory documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company’s last venture financing was a debt round reported in May.