SacStarts - financing

SynapSense raises $7 million for data center monitoring

Adam Kalsey — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:39:53 +0000

Folsom’s SynapSense has received a $7 million investment from Robert Bosch Venture Capital. SynapSense makes wireless systems that monitor environmental factors in data centers. Companies using the startup’s sensors and reporting technology can watch in real time and quantify improvements they make to a data center’s energy efficiency. SynapSense says their system can help cut energy costs by up to 20%. Because the systems are entirely wireless, installation does not require wiring or configuration changes to a data center’s design and infrastructure.

The company has previously raised $13 million from Emerald Technology Ventures, Sequoia Capital, American River Ventures, Nth Power and DFJ Frontier.

Angling for Angels

Adam Kalsey — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:18:40 +0000

Are you looking for funding and considering talking to angel investors? Foothill Angels and DFJ Frontier are hosting a free event December 10th called “Angle for Angels” that promises to be a primer for raising capital.

The half-day program is designed to help execs at early-stage companies meet local investors and entrepreneurs, learn how the fundraising process works, and better understand the process of raising capital in the current economic climate.

SARTA Leadership Series: How to pitch your idea for funding

Adam Kalsey — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:05:52 +0000

Tomorrow morning SARTA’s leadership series event will feature DFJ Frontier’s Scott Lenet talking about how to pitch your idea for funding.

Many great ideas go unnoticed because the person responsible for selling the idea does not know how to communicate to the person writing the check. This annual Leadership Series presentation will cover the steps necessary to pitch your business idea to a VC and other funding sources. Scott Lenet is uniquely qualified to help you on your journey to success in dealing the world of funding.

Engine Yard secures $3.5 million from Benchmark Capital

Adam Kalsey — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:07:58 +0000

Sacramento born Engine Yard has raised $3.5 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital. The company, now located in San Francisco, still has data centers and several employees in Sacramento.

Engine Yard didn’t start out looking for funding. They are already profitable and didn’t see their Rails hosting and support business as lucrative enough to get the large payouts venture companies often require.

Benchmark Capital came calling after they continued to get pitched by startups that were using Rails as their technology. Benchmark saw that Engine Yard’s technologies might allow then to grow a software business to provide technology to Ruby on Rails startups. Engine Yard is one of the chief supporters of Rubinius, a high performance virtual machine for Ruby, and Merb a Rails-compatible framework that promises higher performance.

Much of the money will be used to accelerate development of these projects. Last month, Engine Yard hired the Rubinius core developers after hiring project lead Evan Phoenix last May. Engine Yard co-founder Ezra Zygmuntowicz is the lead developer of Merb.

This is Engine Yard’s first round of equity financing. They previously closed $2.5 million in lease financing to help build out more data centers.

Engine Yard gets $2.5M, moves to SF

Adam Kalsey — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:01:25 +0000

Ruby On Rails hosting provider Engine Yard (see our profile) has announced they’ve taken a large round of lease financing to help them build out their datacenter capacity. The $2.5 million financing will allow Engine Yard to improve their infrastructure, allowing them to add five hosting clusters, including one in Europe.

The company has also moved its headquarters from Sacramento to San Francisco. Although the company hasn’t announced the move, the company address on their web site has recently changed from a Sacramento address to an address in the South Park neighborhood of San Francisco.

SynapSense raises $10 million

Adam Kalsey — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:07:08 +0000

Folsom’s SynapSense has raised a $10 million series B round, bringing the total amount raised by the company to $12 million.

According to Sacramento Executive,

[The] initial product offering from SynapSense enables green data centers to dramatically reduce energy costs and carbon footprint while optimizing data center operational efficiencies. Customers have found that the SynapSense Wireless Green Data Center Solution provides data center operators up to one million vital signs per day, which can enable savings of up to 30 percent of energy costs by providing new data intelligence, triangulation and tools to monitor and react to actual data center conditions.

The round was led by green-tech VC Emerald Technology Ventures of Zurich and all existing investors participated in this round. Last May the company raised $2 million from local investment firms American River Ventures and DFJ Frontier as well as Nth Power of San Francisco.