StarWind Software Secures $3.25M Series B Funding From Almaz Capital, ABRT Venture, AVentures Capital

Leading Provider of Software Defined Storage for Microsoft Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012 Help Unlock All the Benefits of Virtualization Without Expensive Hardware and Added IT Staff


MENLO PARK, CA and WAKEFIELD, MA--(Marketwired - Apr 15, 2014) - StarWind Software Inc., a leading provider of software-defined storage for Hyper-V environments, today announced a $3.25M Series B round of venture capital financing. The round was led by Almaz Capital, with participation from ABRT Venture, and AVentures Capital. Alexander (Sasha) Galitsky, a general partner at Almaz Capital, will join the company's board.

Microsoft's Hyper-V is emerging as the leading virtualization platform for SMBs, with growth similar to that of VMware's ESX in enterprise space last decade. The funding will enable StarWind to capitalize on its leading position in the growing Hyper-V market.

"Sales of StarWind VSAN for Hyper-V have been growing over 100% a year, because the product is simpler to use, cheaper to deploy, and provides compelling value for companies large and small by eliminating the need for hardware components and specialized administrative support," Galitsky explained. "This is a large business opportunity where the founders are uniquely equipped to address what has until now been a prohibitive problem, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises."

StarWind's founders, Artem Berman and Anton Kolomyeytsev, have been developing proprietary technology on the frontier of iSCSI SAN since 2003. With its upcoming release StarWind SAN will become the first solution running on Windows platform that creates clusters of multiple hypervisor hosts without separate physical shared storage.

Added Veeam Software CEO and ABRT Partner Ratmir Timashev who led the Series A investment, "StarWind offers a great value proposition for Windows Server administrators who are virtualizing on Hyper-V platform. It provides business continuity without requiring expensive proprietary hardware and added IT staff."

About StarWind Software Inc.
StarWind Software provides storage virtualization solutions to customers in over 100 countries. The StarWind Software Defined Storage solution delivers the benefits of high-cost hardware-based Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions, but at a much lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). StarWind's flagship iSCSI SAN software solution allows any industry-standard server to deliver fault-tolerant and highly available storage. StarWind fully supports virtual environments, including VMware, Hyper-V, XenServer and Linux.

Since 2003, StarWind has pioneered the iSCSI SAN software industry and is the solution of choice for over 30,000 customers worldwide in more than 100 countries and from small and midsize companies to governments and Fortune 1000 companies. For more information on StarWind Software Inc., visit: www.starwindsoftware.com.

About Almaz Capital
Founded in 2008, Almaz Capital operates with a proven bridge business model focused on early and expansion stage venture investments in high-growth tech sectors including enterprise and cloud computing, mobile, internet infrastructure and services, data storage and management, and ecommerce. The Fund's investors include Cisco, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. The following companies are among Almaz Capital's realized exits over the last three years: Qik, acquired by Skype in 2011; Yandex, IPO 2011; and Vyatta, acquired by Brocade in 2012. For more information, please visit http://www.almazcapital.com

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StarWind Software and the StarWind logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of StarWind

Contact Information:

Media Contacts:

Almaz Capital
Pamela Mahoney
+1 408 674-6997
Irina Goryacheva
+7 903 5083821


StarWind Software Inc.
+1 (617) 449-7717

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