Osage University Partners, a venture capital consortium of many leading US universities, is one of many backers supporting the latest fundraising round by Columbia startup Infinio.
The hard drive performance software developer closed its series B at $12m, and attracted venture firms Bessemer Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners alongside Osage. Both Highland and Bessemer took part in Infinio’s series A, worth $10m, earlier in the year. Along with a $2m seed held in 2012, Infinio has now secured $24m in venture support.
Osage’s involvement in Infinio came about due to mutual collaboration with Columbia University. Infinio was founded in 2011, then known as SilverLining Systems, by Vishal Misra, a computer science professor of Columbia University. With Osage, the institution is one of many members in the consortium, which is focused on backing startups and spin-out coming out of associated universities.
Infinio provides an alternative to companies looking to provide storage for virtual working environments. Instead of offering more hardware, the company instead has produced software which enhances the effectiveness of current hard drive storage, thus reducing the need for additional hardware spending.
Arun Agarwal, chief executive, said: “It’s been a great year for Infinio. On the day we launched, we already had one paying customer, and have added more steadily in the weeks since GA. Earlier this year, we were honoured to win two awards, one recognizing our product’s innovation and one recognizing our momentum as a start-up to watch. We have a proven product, a diverse customer base, a talented team of employees, and now an even stronger financial position going into 2014.”
