Hadoop-based startup Cloudera raises $40M from Ignition Partners, Accel, Greylock

Apache Hadoop-based management service Cloudera has raised a new $40 million funding round, just ahead of its Hadoop World 2011 conference tomorrow.

Cloudera provides its own take on Hadoop’s powerful open-source data management software and couples it with IT support and management. Using Hadoop, enterprises can store and process huge amounts of unstructured data. But Hadoop can often be unwieldy and difficult to manage, so Cloudera helps make it possible to manage that data effectively.

“Any company with a data-intensive environment is probably using Hadoop in some form,” Cloudera COO Kirk Dunn told VentureBeat. “Whether those companies have sought out Hadoop training or management solutions, we’re the company people are looking to and the leaders in this space by any metric.”

The new $40 million funding round was led by Frank Artale of Ignition Partners with participation from existing investors Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and In-Q-Tel.

“Cloudera is the defining company in the big data industry and the popularity of Hadoop is increasing every day,” said Artale, in a statement. “The Big Data space is moving fast — we looked at many investment opportunities and chose Cloudera due to their clear leadership. The team and its technology are the best in this business and we are excited to be part of it.”

Cloudera also announced today that it has partnered with storage and data solutions company NetApp. The two companies have created the NetApp Open Solution for Hadoop, which combines Cloudera’s wide-ranging Hadoop distribution with a NetApp-constructed RAID architecture. It’s a big deal for enterprise customers seeking to put more power behind Hadoop and customized data processing and management efforts.

“This gives NetApp’s customers the ability to process new data and existing data and that data together, which hasn’t been possible before,” Dunn said.

Cloudera is on a roll when it comes to funding, and its total raised, including today’s round, now stands at an impressive $76 million. It raised a $25 million round a year ago with funding led by Meritech Capital Partners and previous investors Accel and Greylock. Before that, it raised $6 million in June 2009 and $5 million in March 2009.