Tintri raises $25M for trippy-sounding infrastructure: virtualized flash storage

Tintri, a startup that produces flash storage appliances for virtual machines, announces today that it’s closed an oversubscribed $25 million round of funding. This is the company’s fourth funding round.

Storage servers are expensive pieces of infrastructure but are necessary for companies that manage large amounts of data. Tintri compresses information using solid state disks, rather than bulky hard drives, and makes use of flash technology so data storage is more compact and cost-effective.

“We use the same kind of technology that is in MacBook Airs, phones, and iPod Touches, which have been used extensively in the consumer space, but not in business,” said CEO Kieran Harty. “Almost all storage today is hard to build. We introduced compression and efficiency technology that reduces the number of servers they need in a data center by a factor of 10.”

Businesses spend massive amounts of money setting up data centers, networks, and servers, and Tintri’s virtualization technology not only makes storage more affordable but also easier to administer. The system can be up and running in 30 minutes, as opposed to two days. The appeal of greater affordability and simplicity is clearly appealing to the enterprise world, as Tintri has experienced rapid growth of 100%, quarter over quarter.

This also shows why Tintri is a compelling company for investors.

“Billions of dollars are spent each year on these pieces of infrastructure, and the industry has a $30 billion market cap,” said Harty. “We were interested in building a company that was not going to be a quick acquisition, but could grow to a billion dollar company or more. ”

The money will be put towards expanding sales and marketing activities and scaling the product. Tintri already has over 100 companies using its technology, including Alliance Bank, gaming company Digital Chocolate, Northwestern University, and F5 Networks. The financing was led by Menlo Ventures. Existing investors NEA and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participated, bringing the company’s total capital raised to over $60 million.

The company currently has 85 employees and is based in Mountain View, Calif.