Avaki to raise new funds for promotion of grid technologyCambridge 23 October 2001 Avaki Corporation, a developer of grid software to enable resource sharing across large-scale, highly distributed computer networks, today announced a $10 million second closing of its series A financing by Polaris Venture Partners, General Catalyst and Sofinnova. This brings the overall company investment to $16 million, led by Polaris Venture Partners. AVAKI closed the first round of $6 million in June 2001.
AVAKI also announced the charter availability of AVAKI 2.0, and the formation of a Technical Advisory Board. "We are thrilled to have such an impressive roster of VC firms partner with us as we launch the charter availability of AVAKI 2.0", said David Fish, President and
CEO of AVAKI. "They bring a long-term commitment and deep industry knowledge in the technology we are bringing to market globally, which will be invaluable as we grow."
"Enterprises have encountered real pain as they have tried to leverage the Internet to create a truly distributed framework, not just for compute resources but also for data and applications, and AVAKI's technology is the first that actually cures that pain", said Michael Hirshland, General Partner, Polaris Venture Partners. "The addition of a world-class Technical Advisory Board beginning with Bob Metcalfe, and the addition of David Orfao, the former CEO of Allaire, to the Board of Directors represents the level of excitement people have about AVAKI's technology."
AVAKI will use the funds for product development and marketing of their innovative AVAKI 2.0 product, which makes resources available for large-scale computing by allowing heterogeneous networks to function as a single environment. This innovative solution allows enterprises to capitalise on the true power of grid computing and thereby accelerate time to market, increase ROI on existing computing infrastructure and reduce the barriers associated with implementing Web Services. The product, in development for seven years at the University of Virginia, unifies multiple work platforms in multiple locations, extending robust and secure enterprise capabilities to the edge of the Internet.
"We are delighted to work with an executive team that is genuinely passionate about delivering the next generation of Internet infrastructure", stated David Orfao, Managing Director, General Catalyst. "AVAKI's grid computing infrastructure is forming the basis for the next generation of Web Services."
The company also announced the formation of a Technical Advisory Board that is chartered to drive the strategic technical direction of the company's technology and its application in the market place. AVAKI's Founder and CTO, Andrew Grimshaw, will chair the board. Bob Metcalfe, the Inventor of Ethernet and Founder of 3Com, and Venture Partner, Polaris Venture Partners, will move from
the Board of Directors to step onto the Technical Advisory Board as its first member. He is also making a personal investment in this round of funding.
With this round, David Orfao, Managing Director, General Catalyst, has been appointed to the AVAKI Board of Directors. AVAKI's other board members include: Andrew Grimshaw, Chairman and CTO of AVAKI; David Fish, President and CEO of AVAKI; David Barrett, Venture Partner, Polaris Venture Partners; Michael Hirshland, General Partner, Polaris Venture Partners; Anita Jones, Former Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Sofinnova's participation in the round will help AVAKI target possible prospects in Europe, a key Life Sciences market.
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