When ClearSky Data unveiled its new approach to data storage in late August, the startup’s founders drew an analogy with a legend of the Boston tech industry: Akamai Technologies. Now it looks like Cambridge-based Akamai (AKAM) agrees with the comparison. ClearSky just announced a $27 million Series B funding round from investors including Akamai. And leading the deal is Polaris Partners, which was one of Akamai’s early backers.
Boston-based ClearSky Data has launched what it calls a global storage network, with the goal of dramatically simplifying the way companies manage their data while also cutting costs. ClearSky co-founder Ellen Rubin said her company has been talking with Akamai as a potential partner for a while now. “We know a number of people there, and they were supportive of us at launch,” she said. “They were definitely in the mix, more because we think they’re a fantastic partner … They didn’t invest because we said we were like them.”
Undoubtedly it didn’t hurt, though: What ClearSky is doing is a lot like what Akamai Technologies did for Web content, but instead applied to data storage, according to the company.
The funding is secondary to the other types of assistance Akamai will be able to provide to ClearSky, however, Rubin said. That includes engaging with Akamai’s sales and marketing organizations, which are already working with markets and customers that ClearSky hopes to connect with, she said. ClearSky will also be engaging with Andy Champagne, VP and CTO at Akamai Labs, who is responsible for much of the product strategy at Akamai. “We’ll definitely be working closely with him, thinking through where we might want to go, and things we want to do together from a product direction,” Rubin said.
ClearSky Data aims to transform data storage—“which has essentially not changed for decades,” Rubin said previously—into a service that is easier, cheaper and more on-demand. As Akamai did with Web content, ClearSky is seeking to keep data storage geographically close to users in part to reduce latency.
ClearSky has launched its service in the Boston, Philadelphia and Las Vegas regions, and plans to begin expanding to additional geographies soon, Rubin said.
The company has now raised $39 million in total. Other investors in the company are General Catalyst and Highland Capital Partners, which took part both in the previous and latest funding rounds. Leading the deal for Polaris is managing partner Dave Barrett, who is joining the ClearSky board. Champagne will join as a board observer.
The 40-person team at ClearSky is led by Rubin (as CEO) and Laz Vekiarides (as CTO), both veterans of past Boston storage technology winners. Vekiarides had been a senior manager at EqualLogic and then stayed on with Dell after its $1.4 billion acquisition of the company. Rubin had been an executive at Netezza (acquired for $1.7 billion by IBM) and after that co-founded CloudSwitch, acquired by Verizon in 2011.
