Pure Storage Got $40 Million in Series D

Pure Storage, Inc. has closed an oversubscribed $40 million Series D funding round led by Index Ventures‘ senior partner Mike Volpi; existing investors Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures also contributed to the round.

The new funding, which brings the company’s total capital raise to $95 million, will enable to accelerate its go to market strategy, including expanding internationally, with plans to establish operations in Europe in conjunction with channel partners.

The company will also apply the funds toward building out its best of breed sales, marketing and engineering teams, and to enhancing and internationalizing its lead generation function for Pure Storage and its partners.

Volpi, a veteran investor and entrepreneur, will join the company as a strategic advisor and take a seat on its board of directors.

"The advent of solid state memory technology as a mainstream, enterprise-class storage solution represents one of the most disruptive changes that the industry will see in a decade. Index has been fortunate to support a number of transformative companies over the years. We are confident that Pure Storage represents exactly such an industry-defining company. The technology that their team has created is unique and best in class. They are ideally positioned to realize the transformation of enterprise storage to flash memory," said Mike Volpi, partner at Index Ventures. "It is my immense pleasure to join them in their mission."

Since emerging from stealth one year ago, Pure Storage has shipped more than 100 of its production-hardened FlashArrays to customers. Packed with new features like HA, FlashCare, and the data integrity fabric, the FlashArray is an all-flash storage array to make the performance of flash memory affordable for mainstream enterprises. Using a combination of data deduplication, compression and MLC flash memory, Pure Storage offers all-flash, enterprise-ready storage below the cost of mechanical disk.

"We are honored to welcome Mike Volpi and Index Ventures to our team, and are encouraged by the continued commitment of our existing investors. Bolstered by this new round of funding, we can continue to expand our North American operations and begin building a strong presence in Europe and beyond," said Scott Dietzen, CEO at Pure Storage. "When we emerged one year ago as a pioneer in the all-flash storage category, few believed that we could deliver the benefits of all-flash below the price point of mechanical disk. Today, we remain the only vendor providing sub-millisecond, inline data deduplication and compression, and yet it is a must have for cost-effective flash storage. The key now is to have access to the working capital to get this technology into the hands of the customers and partners that are screaming for it."

Pure Storage is exhibiting at VMworld in San Francisco, CA September 26 – 30.