The Venture Codex

Participated · Series B · Aug 2018

Robin.io provides a fully automated, hyper-converged cloud-native platform for application and data management that enables enterprises and 5G service providers to deliver complex application pipelines as a service. Built on industry-standard Kubernetes, Robin.io lets developers and platform engineers deploy and manage data- and network-centric applications—including big data, NoSQL and 5G RAN, Core and MEC—independent of underlying infrastructure. Its three core products are Robin Cloud Native Platform (Robin CNP) for zero-touch deployment and operational automation, Robin Multi Data Center Automation Platform (Robin MDCAP) for automated healing and scaling and service delivery, and Robin Cloud Native Storage (Robin CNS) which offers application-aware storage with multiple petabytes under production deployment. The company cites strong commercial traction: bookings growth surpassed 400% quarter‑over‑quarter (comparing the first two quarters of the fiscal year) and 681% year‑over‑year for the quarter, alongside 32 new partnerships and 57% team growth across four countries over the past year. The Series C increased total capital raised to $86M. With rising bookings and new partnerships, Robin.io is positioned to expand deployments with service providers and enterprise customers globally. Robin Systems develops ROBIN, a hyper-converged Kubernetes platform that simplifies deployment and lifecycle management for big data, database and AI/ML applications. ROBIN embeds application lifecycle management natively into compute, storage, and network infrastructure to enable one-click functions and a self-service app-store experience, shortening tasks from hours or weeks to minutes. The platform supports on-premises and public cloud deployments and enables rapid deployment, performance testing, scaling, migration, and recreation of entire application environments across data centers and clouds. The company plans to use the Series B proceeds to promote its Hyper-converged Kubernetes platform and further simplify application deployment and lifecycle management for DevOps and IT. Founded in 2013 and led by CEO Premal Buch, Robin Systems is based in San Jose, California. The company has raised more than $27m in venture funding. Robin Systems offers a platform-agnostic service that combines containerization and storage virtualization on top of SSDs to deliver high-performance operating infrastructure for Spark, Hadoop and modern NoSQL databases. The company says it uses more than a dozen patent-pending innovations and an intelligent host-side data acceleration layer that leverages Flash and NVMe to accelerate I/O. Robin reports roughly 3x faster data access and has customers seeing query speedups of about 3x along with dramatically increased data ingestion rates. It has also built a virtualized "data lake" service to power its stack. The business announced a leadership hire of Premal Buch as CEO and intends to use new funding to scale engineering and sales. To date the company has raised $22 million in total financing.

Participated · Series E · May 2018

Dreamlines is Europe’s largest online travel agency specializing in cruise-related travel, founded in 2012 and based in Hamburg. The company connects customers to the largest portfolio of cruises around the world and offers exclusive Dreamlines packages. Since launch it has expanded into 10 countries and partners with over 100 cruise operators. Dreamlines positions itself as a tech-focused platform to move the cruise industry online and expand internationally. Management says the new capital will support continued growth and international expansion. Dreamlines operates an online cruise marketplace and provides an online portal for cruises across seven European countries. The company is led by Managing Director Felix Schneider and has its global headquarters in Hamburg, with offices in France, Brazil, Russia, the Netherlands and Australia. Dreamlines intends to use the newly raised funds to expand organically and through acquisitions. The company raised €18m in the reported funding round and had previously raised €32m in 2016. The raise is intended to support the company’s international growth and M&A-driven expansion plans. Dreamlines is an online travel agency for cruises that offers bookings across approximately 30,000 cruises via more than 100 shipping companies. The company was founded in 2012 by Felix Schneider and Nils Regge and is based in Hamburg, Germany. It employs over 350 people across offices in Germany, France, Brazil, Australia, Italy, Russia and the Netherlands. Dreamlines has raised a total of €44m to date and recently secured an additional €14m in funding. The new funds will be used to continue growth in Germany and to support international expansion. The company’s platform and distribution through a broad set of shipping partners underpin its expansion plans. DREAMLINES operates an online cruise portal that lists over 30,000 products, from short cruises to around-the-world and transatlantic itineraries. Founded in January 2012 and headquartered in Hamburg, the company serves the German-speaking market and also operates in Australia, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Russia and Brazil. DREAMLINES employs about 280 people worldwide. In August the company acquired one of the biggest cruise portals in Australia as part of its international expansion. The recent €20 million Series C financing will fund the company’s rapid growth and support further global expansion. DREAMLINES is described in the article as one of the most important providers of cruises on the German market.

Participated · Equity · May 2017

Vera develops data-centric security solutions that enable businesses of all sizes to secure, track and share any type of data. Its platform automates data security, encryption, access control and compliance while providing a complete audit trail and chain of custody across applications, devices and platforms. The solution is positioned to help enterprises comply with a complex web of state, federal and international regulations, including the EU's GDPR. Led by CEO and co-founder Ajay Arora, Vera intends to use the new funding to accelerate expansion into multi-national and European markets. Financially, the company raised $15M in this venture round and has raised over $50M to date. In conjunction with the financing, Clear Venture Partners’ co-founder Chris Rust joined Vera’s board of directors. Vera provides a cloud-based platform that allows users to share data via any service and then apply rules—expiration dates, watermarks, encryption, and restrictions on copy/paste, editing or screenshots—while retaining the ability to revoke access and view an audit trail. The company broadened its original focus on files in motion to protect multiple data types and aims to become Information Rights Management (IRM) as a Service. Vera ended the fourth quarter with over 30 customers and hundreds of thousands of users. It currently employs 70 people (50 in the U.S. and 20 in India) and plans to grow to 110–120 employees by the end of the year. To support growth it will invest the new capital in sales and marketing over the next 12–18 months and increase R&D to add more data types under protection. The CEO emphasized the company’s focus on customer proof points and finding the right market fit rather than taking an outsized valuation early. Veradocs is a Mountain View, CA-based data-security company founded in early 2014 by Ajay Arora and Prakash Linga. The company offers a solution that enables enterprises, IT and end-users to secure and share any digital information across platforms and devices. Its product protects critical enterprise data while allowing users to create, access, edit, store and share data using applications and web services such as email, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Box. Veradocs was in private beta with top companies in finance, media and entertainment, hi-tech and non-profit industries at the time of the article. The company planned to make the product generally available in early 2015. Around the financing it also added Robin Daniels as chief marketing officer.

Participated · Series C · Aug 2016

Diablo Technologies is a San Diego-based developer of enterprise computing technologies led by CEO Mark Stibitz. The company builds Memory1, a memory channel storage platform that combines software and hardware architectures with NAND-Flash to create a new generation of solid-state storage. Memory1 provides 1TB or 2TB of system memory in a single two-socket server via JEDEC-compliant, flash-based DIMMs that interface with existing server architectures. The DIMMs require no changes to hardware, operating systems, or applications. The product targets workloads needing large memory footprints such as big data analytics, caching, and complex web applications. Diablo recently secured $37M in an oversubscribed Series C across two phases. Diablo Technologies develops enterprise computing memory solutions and offers the Memory1 and Memory Channel Storage products. Memory1 is a memory technology that delivers high capacity on large DRAM modules. Its Memory Channel Storage platform combines software and hardware architectures with non-volatile memory to create a new generation of solid-state storage for data-intensive applications. The company plans to use the new funding to further accelerate customer deployments through expanded sales, applications support and R&D. Diablo is led by newly named CEO Mark Stibitz and Chief Product Officer Riccardo Badalone, the company's co-founder and previous CEO. The company was founded in 2003 and is based in San Jose, CA. Founded in 2003 by CEO Riccardo Badalone, Diablo Technologies develops memory system interface products centered on its Memory Channel Storage (MCS) technology platform. The MCS platform leverages NAND-flash and future non-volatile memory technologies to enable increased application performance and a new class of enterprise server and storage system designs. Diablo's upcoming MCS products are intended to improve transaction processing and data analysis within compute-servers, enterprise datacenters and cloud-computing facilities worldwide. The company closed an additional $7.5M of equity funding to support the launch of MCS and to expand marketing and distribution across a broader set of applications. This additional financing brings the total equity investment in the latest round to $35.5M, following a $28M raise in November 2012. Diablo Technologies develops the Memory Channel Storage (MCS) technology platform, a memory system interface that leverages NAND-flash and future non-volatile memory technologies. The platform is intended to enable improvements in transaction processing and data analysis within compute servers, enterprise datacenters and cloud-computing facilities worldwide. The company intends to use the $28M raised to complete its MCS technology platform. Diablo was founded in 2003 by Riccardo Badalone, who serves as CEO, and is based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In conjunction with the financing, representatives of investors will join the company's board of directors.

Participated · Series B · Feb 2016

Reflektion provides an AI-driven customer engagement and personalization platform that understands and influences individual customer intent in real time and delivers the most relevant content across all touchpoints. Its solutions combine individual shopper insights, product intelligence and deep learning to create ecommerce experiences. Retail brands such as TOMS, Ann Taylor, Sur La Table, Godiva and Destination XL use Reflektion’s AI. The company was founded in 2012 by Amar Chokhawala, who serves as CEO. Reflektion is based in San Mateo, California and Chicago, Illinois and intends to use new funding to expand into international markets, particularly EMEA. The EMEA region already accounts for 10 percent of its total revenue. Reflektion offers an "Individualized Commerce" predictive analytics platform that uses artificial intelligence and data science to capture, analyze and respond to each shopper's preferences and intent in real time. The company's solutions help merchants monetize webstore traffic through personalized experiences and applications. Clients include The Walt Disney Company, Converse, Uniqlo and Godiva. Led by CEO Sean Moran, Reflektion is focused on growing its client base and developing new products. The company plans to use recent funding to expand into international markets. As of the article, Reflektion had raised $29.3M in total funding. Reflektion builds real-time predictive analytics that analyze multiple data sets to forecast what each online shopper is likely to buy next. The company's product delivers individualized inputs to retailers to improve conversion and personalization. Reflektion cites customers such as O'Neill, whose conversion rates improved by 50% after using the platform. The startup plans to use the new funding to beef up sales and marketing and to launch e-commerce and business intelligence products. Reflektion's CEO Sean Moran framed the work as bringing advanced analytics to retail in a "Moneyball"-style approach. The company was founded by Google veteran Amar Chokhawala, an early engineer on Google Books and Gmail.