Not many people know about cloud hosting. But the money flowing into the emerging sector is beginning to turn heads, with Eucalyptus Systems the latest beneficiary. Funding companies are poring a lot of money into companies with cloud hosting in their scopes.
The Calififornia startup has landed $20 million in a second round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates, one of the most venerable names in the venture capital business. NEA is joining existing investors Benchmark Capital and BV Capital, which also participated in the latest infusion–which brings the total committed to Eucalyptus so far to $25.5 million.
Not that it really needed more money at the moment, says Marten Mickos, a veteran software entrepreneur that helped elevate the profile of Eucalyptus by joining the company as CEO last March. “We have two thirds of our previous round still untouched,” he says. But interest among investors and potential customers in the cloud computing concept is strong at the moment, and the company realized that building a substantial company would eventually take more money.
