Multi-cloud data storage software business MinIO Inc. joined the Bay Area's unicorn herd Wednesday with a $1 billion valuation and $103 million in new capital.
The Palo Alto company's big Series B round was led by Intel Capital, with SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Dell Capital, General Catalyst and Nexus Venture Partners joining in.
MinIO's software is used to store pieces of data referred to as "objects" in easily retrievable formats in the cloud. The company said it has more than 1.2 million active deployments on storage in the public cloud, private cloud and at the edge of networks.
The company developed its software as an open source project, which CEO Anand Babu "AB" Perisamy said helped it gain wide adoption. It wasn't until last year when it began adding services for which it charges its customers.
"It's very important to do a land grab and establish a powerful brand with the user community to say we are here to stay and we are the best of breed in our category," Perisamy told the Business Journal.
Anybody who wants to build a commercial application on top of MinIO's open source storage software can give it away as an open source project or buy a commercial license from MinIO. With growing numbers of customers wanting to do the latter, Perisamy said, "Now is the pefect time to commercialize our product."
The new funding will be used to further develop MinIO's storage software and help it market its commercial licensing, he said.
The company stayed lean since it was founded eight years ago. It started 2022 with 40 employees, the same number it began with in 2021. But with the new funding it added five more team members this month and plans to continue to grow that number modestly, Perisamy said.
