01.18.05
Columbia, S.C. – Unitrends Software Corp., a data protection company formed more than 15 years ago, today announced that it has raised $8.1 million in additional financing.
Joining existing investor The Trelys Funds were new investors The Aurora Funds, which led the round, Harbert Venture Partners and ECentury Capital. Unitrends will use the funding to expand its sales and marketing organizations throughout North America, and will continue to invest in the development of integrated software and hardware business recovery solutions, including its complete line of Data Protection Unit (DPU™) products and services.
Aurora General Partner Rich Brown, ECentury Principal Amit Bhargava, and Harbert Managing Partner Wayne Hunter will join Trelys Managing General Partner Larry Wilson, President Jacques McCormack and company founder and Chief Technology Officer Steve Schwartz on the six-member board.
Unitrends develops and markets data backup and recovery products for small to mid-sized businesses. The company's appliances are designed to enable automated, disk-to-disk backup over corporate networks and quick information recovery after emergency situations, such as disk crashes and network shutdowns.
"Unitrends impresses us with its focus on delivering solid value and benefits to a clearly defined target market, which is demonstrated by the Company's strong revenue growth in 2004," said Rich Brown, General Partner at The Aurora Funds. "In our study of the industry, we found that the medium and small business market is underserved; most storage vendors market to these customers solely by selling products with reduced functionality. Unitrends breaks that trend by delivering full-featured solutions that help its customers solve their challenges today, and which are designed to scale with them as their needs grow."
Unitrends markets and sells business recovery solutions that protect SMB data and operations at the file, system, site and business level. The solutions are based on Unitrends' DPU integrated storage appliances which incorporate its data protection software suite, including BareMetal Plus™. Unitrends has demonstrated its value to SMBs by providing business recovery solutions that ensure system and data availability, and incorporate full-powered, simple-to-operate performance at a fraction of the cost of products from competing vendors. The solutions save users significant time and money by allowing restoration of a crashed system (including passwords and permissions) in as little as 30 minutes. Unitrends sells through a base of more than 200 resellers nationwide, including Northrop Grumman, MPC Computers and Software Plus. Its list of clients includes companies such as GE Health, Siemens, Furman University, Motorola Employees Credit Union, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and FileNet Inc.
"Our research shows that the needs of SMBs in terms of data recovery are no less than those of their larger brethren except that they generally do not have specialized IT personnel," said Arun Taneja, principal analyst at the Taneja Group, an analyst and consulting group focused on storage and storage-centric server technologies. "As a result, they prefer a well-integrated, complete solution from a company that understands their needs microscopically. Unitrends both understands and meets these unique needs. I believe SMBs will drive storage growth for the foreseeable future and this positions Unitrends squarely in the fast lane."
"This investment serves as an industry confirmation of both Unitrends' product line and our go-to-market strategy," said Jacques McCormack, president of Unitrends. "This capital will enable us to accelerate our growth, and further penetrate the markets that are key to our continued success."
About Unitrends Software Corp.
Founded in 1989, Unitrends Software Corp. is a pioneer in the protection of corporate-critical data and a leader in business recovery solutions. Unitrends provides powerful backup, recovery and complete data-protection products and services that are cross-platform, scalable and simple to use. More information on Unitrends is available from the company's website, www.unitrends.com, or by calling 803.454.0300.
About The Aurora Funds
Founded in 1994, The Aurora Funds is a venture capital firm that provides capital and strategic help to entrepreneurs with early stage life sciences and information technology companies in the Southeastern and mid-Atlantic United States. The firm has more than $155 million of total capital under management and is currently investing out of its fourth fund of $85 million. The firm has the capacity to invest between $4 million and $7 million throughout the life cycle of an investment. More information is available at www.aurorafunds.com.
About ECentury Capital
ECentury Capital is a $90 million balanced-stage venture capital fund that makes investments throughout the eastern United States in distinctive technology companies that solve real business problems. The company gives its portfolio companies the power to accelerate their businesses into global markets by leveraging relationships with its active, institutional partners: Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Allied Capital and Rothschild. More information is available at www.ecenturycapital.com.
About Harbert Venture Partners
Harbert Venture Partners, with offices in Richmond, VA and Birmingham, AL, provides growth capital to early stage technology and healthcare companies in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. Our team combines substantial investment, advisory and operating experience with capital to assist entrepreneurs in successfully executing their growth plans. Harbert Venture Partners is an affiliate of Harbert Management Corp., a privately owned investment manager focusing on alternative asset classes. Harbert has twenty-two funds under management, representing over $5.0 billion in assets under management. More information is available at www.harbert.net.
About The Trelys Funds
The Trelys Funds is South Carolina's largest and most active early-stage venture capital firm. Providing both risk capital and experienced counsel, Trelys invests in emerging-growth companies in South Carolina and the surrounding region. The founding investors of Trelys include BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, BB&T Corporation, Carolina First Bank, First Citizens Bank, the Clemson University Foundation, and the Medical University of South Carolina Foundation. For more information, see www.trelys.com.
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