Eucalyptus grabs $30M from IVP to push the open-source private cloud forward

Open-source cloud software maker Eucalyptus Systems has raised $30 million in its third round of funding, cash that will help the company serve quickly growing demand for private and hybrid clouds.

Eucalyptus gives away its open-source software platform to anyone who wants to use it, but it also finds ways to commercialize the product through partners and customer support. The company’s tech enables 25,000 “cloud starts” each year, and 20 percent of Fortune 100 companies have used Eucalyptus in some form, whether free or paid.

“This is mostly about building a war chest and a cushion for our growth,” Eucalyptus CEO Marten Mickos told VentureBeat. “We’ve had a major increase in demand in the last six months.”

The company has tons of major partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Dell, HP, Intel, and others. Mickos told us the partnerships also extend to “some of the most innovative cloud companies in the business,” including RightScale, enStratus, Puppet Labs, and Electric Cloud.

Easily the most important of these partnerships is with Amazon, the leading provider worldwide for cloud computing infrastructure. With companies taking advantage of both Amazon cloud infrastructure and Eucalyptus on-premise software for on-premise cloud, companies can create a hybrid cloud model, something that is being heavily hyped this year.

The new $30 million funding round was led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), while previous investors Benchmark Capital, BV Capital, and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) also participated. That brings Eucalyptus’ total funding to date to $55.5 million.

Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Eucalyptus was founded in 2007 and has 80 employees. Mickos said the company will continue to quickly hire and expand its team with the new funding.

Photo illustration: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

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