Lightbits Labs, which builds software-powered NVMe/TCP-accessed storage servers, has pulled in $42 million in new funding, taking its total funding to $105.3 million.
Update: Funding history revised; 30 June 2022.
It was founded by the inventors of the NVMe/TCP standard and introduced the idea of disaggregated, composable block storage for any on-prem servers (private clouds) and public clouds. Its software works with existing operating systems, networking, and hardware, and relies on everyday Ethernet as its transport medium. Lightbits Labs supports hybrid multi-cloud implementations on bare metal, VMware, Kubernetes or OpenStack environments.
Co-founder and chairman Avigdor Willenz said: “This investment and our continued growth are validation of our strategy, our incredible team, and our mission to lead the cloud-native datacenter transformation by delivering scalable and efficient software-defined storage that is easy to consume.”
Lightbits Labs, which was started in 2015 by a group of seven co-founders, will use the funding for general business expansion and product development. It has to build its business in competition with other supplies of NVMe/TCP storage including startups Fungible, Pavilion Data, and StorONE, and established players like DataCore, Dell, Infinidat, NetApp, and Toshiba with its Kumoscale product. That is a lot of competition.
The funding round was led by new investor Atreides Management, alongside JP Morgan, Valor Equity Partners, Eyal Ofer’s OG Tech, founder and chairman of Pacific Century Group (PCG) Richard Li, existing investors, and others. Gavin Baker, Manager Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Atreides Management, commented: “Lightbits has established itself as a clear leader in disaggregated storage solutions – poised to meet accelerated customer demand with its cloud-native data platform.”
Previous fundraising includes a seed round in 2015 and an A-round in 2016 which together totalled $20 million, a $42.5 million B-round in 2018, and something from Intel Capital in 2020.
