HaaS云服务提供商Altiscale完成B轮3000万美元融资
一提到Hadoop,大家可能就会想到数据中心复杂的内部设置,但Altiscale希望通过将全部服务转向云端,并提供Hadoop即服务(Hadoop-as-a-Service,简称“HaaS”),减少这种工作的复杂性。今天,Altiscale宣布完成B轮3000万美元融资,用以继续推进这一目标。
此轮融资由Northgate领投,红杉资本和General Catalyst Partners等现有投资方跟投,Altiscale的融资总额也由此达到4200万美元。
Hadoop是一个旨在帮助企业处理大数据的开源项目。
Altiscale同时还宣布,麦克·马希亚戈(Mike Maciag)加盟该公司担任首席运营官。马希亚戈具有丰富的从业经验,在加盟AltiScale以前已经在5家创业公司工作过。在这5家公司中,已有两家上市,有两家被收购,还有一家至今仍在运营。
马希亚戈曾见证了Hadoop开源平台的发展历程。他表示,自己之所以最终加盟AltiScale,是因为该公司已经打下了在这一领域获得成功的基础。正如他所说,AltiScale已经开发了相关产品,并证明该产品可以投入规模运营。现在,AltiScale需要更多的资金将这项工作推向深入,同时进军更广阔的市场。
此轮融资还表明投资方对AltiScale的产品创意非常有信心。之前1200万美元的融资令AltiScale有了今天这种成绩,现在他们需要更多的投资,创建一个组织来发现和支持更多的客户。
AltiScale在众多Hadoop厂商中之所以能脱颖而出,是因为该公司诞生于云时代,具有处理Hadoop工作负荷的明确目标。正如AltiScale创始人兼首席执行官雷米·斯塔塔(Raymie Stata)告诉我,运营Hadoop并不是一件轻松的事情,仍然需要付出大量艰辛。斯塔塔在雅虎开始了自己的职业生涯,雅虎旗下有一个庞大的组织来支持Hadoop相关项目,但大多数采用Hadoop平台的公司并没有这种资源。
斯塔塔表示,这也是他创建Altiscale的主要原因之一。通过将服务放入云端,Altiscale可以将Hadoop推向更广阔的受众,在客户遭遇一些不可避免的问题时,他们完全可以信赖Altiscale的服务。有时,Altiscale会在处理阶段发现问题,有时则是客户主动上报问题,因此客户不是被迫自己去追踪问题,然后留给Altiscale来解决。
斯塔塔称,解决问题的时间可以从几天缩短至几小时,因为他的公司完全专注于Hadoop。相反,对于大多数IT部门来说,这是另一个他们需要解决的问题。
值得一提的是,Hadoop近来已成为一个热门领域。另一家Hadoop厂商Hortworks最近宣布,该公司将提交S-1文件,迈出公开上市的第一步。去年3月份,Cloudera宣布该公司的估值超过了40亿美元。
Altiscale Lands $30M To Continue Building Hadoop Cloud Service
When you think of Hadoop, you probably think of a complex on-premises set up in your data center, but Altiscale wants to reduce some of that complexity by moving the whole thing to the cloud and offering Hadoop as a service. Today it got $30M in Series B funding to continue that quest.
The round is led by Northgate, with participation from previous investors Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst Partners. Today’s funding brings Altiscale’s total raised to $42M.
Hadoop is an open source project designed to help companies process big data.
The company also announced it brought Mike Maciag on board to be its Chief Operating officer. Maciag is a seasoned industry veteran with experience at five startups before joining AltiScale. He indicated two had gone public, two were sold and one was still operating.
Maciag, who has seen this process before, says what attracted him to Altiscale was that they have the pieces in place to succeed. As he explained, the company has created the product and proven it works at scale. Now, they need more money to bring that to the next level and take it to a broader market.
And presumably, it shows investor confidence in the idea. The first $12M got them to this point, but they needed a significant investment to build out an organization to find and support more clients.
What makes Altiscale unusual among Hadoop vendors, is that it was born in the cloud with the express purpose of processing Hadoop workloads. As company founder and CEO Raymie Stata told me, running Hadoop is not a simple matter and it’s still a bit rough around the edges. He got his start at Yahoo! which has a huge organization supporting its Hadoop efforts, but most companies trying to work with Hadoop don’t have that luxury.
He says that’s one of the main reasons he created Altiscale. By putting the service in the cloud, it brings Hadoop to a much wider audience and customers can lean on his company when they hit those inevitable issues. Sometimes the company picks them up in the processing stage and sometimes it’s in the form of a help ticket from the customer, but instead of being forced to track down the problem themselves, customers can leave it to Altiscale to do that.
And he says, that process of solving the problem can be reduced from days to hours because his company is entirely focused on Hadoop. Whereas for most IT departments it’s just another problem among many to track down.
It’s worth noting that Hadoop has been a hot commodity lately. Just recently Hortworks, another Hadoop vendor announced it was going public by filing an S-1. Last March Cloudera announced a valuation of more than $4B.
来源:TC