The 10 Coolest Virtualization Startups Of 2013 (So Far)

Virtualization Value

Growth in the cloud computing and software-defined data center markets is fueling needs for more advanced technology that can operate in a virtualized IT environment. Here are 10 startups in the virtualization market that are making names for themselves with hot technology and big investment funding wins.

Delphix

CEO: Jedidiah Yueh

Delphix had a banner year in 2012 with more than 200 percent sales growth, thanks to major enterprise customer wins with the likes of Fidelity and DirecTV. Headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., the database virtualization startup also closed $25 million in funding last year with JAFCO, Summit Partners and Battery Ventures. This year Delphix is focused on expanding its operations not only in North America but also in EMEA and Asia. The company is building momentum behind its partnership with SAP, which made Delphix's Agile Data Platform part of the SAP Endorsed Business Solutions Program.

GreenBytes

CEO: Steve O'Donnell

GreenBytes was formed in 2007, but the Providence, R.I.-based company is making a name for itself this year with its virtual desktop optimization technology. In April the company earned $7 million in Series C funding from Generation Investment Management LLP and Battery Ventures. In addition, GreenBytes strengthened its leadership team with the addition of Dell and Oracle veteran Mark Hardy as vice president of sales for EMEA. The company is now focused on expanding its IO-Offload vIO appliances through technology alliances with other vendors as well as channel partners.

Intigua

CEO: Shimon Hason

Intigua celebrated the start of 2013 the right way: with an $8.6 million round of Series A financing from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cedar Fund and other individual investors. The virtualization management startup was started in 2009 when its founders began working on a cloud platform with a virtualized management layer. Intigua's platform was recently certified by IBM as "Ready For Tivoli," which will allow the technology to be integrated with IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM).

Midokura

CEO: Dan Mihai Dumitriu

The month of April was very good for Midokura, showering the network virtualization startup with $17.3 million in Series A funding, led by Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) with participation from NTT Group and NEC Group's respective venture capital arms. Midokura, which was formed in 2010, also celebrated in April the launch of its MidoNet platform, which virtualizes the network stack to help reduce management costs for cloud platforms. The company will use the funding on future product innovation and go-to-market efforts.

PernixData

CEO: Poojan Kumar

Founded by former VMware and Oracle technology veterans, PernixData has a simple plan: virtualize all server-side Flash memory through a software-defined storage platform called FVP (Flash Virtualization Platform). PernixData recently closed a whopping $20 million round of Series B financing from such participants as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as well as existing investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company said it plans to use the funding to expand sales and marketing on a global scale as well as future R&D investments.

PHD Virtual Technologies

CEO: James Legg

PHD Virtual recently announced some major milestones, including its 13th consecutive record quarter with year-over-year revenue growth of 35 percent. The company, which specializes in virtual machine backup and recovery software, also celebrated 260 percent growth in channel deal registrations through partners. Along with $4 million in Series C funding in March, PHD Virtual acquired another startup in April, adding VirtualSharp and its automated disaster recovery products for virtualized environments.

Pluribus Networks

CEO: Robert Drost

Pluribus Networks closed out 2012 in style with a huge round of Series C funding -- $23 million -- from Menlo Ventures as well as existing investors like New Enterprise Associates and Mohr Davidow Ventures. The company has continued to thrive this year, thanks to additional investments from China Broadband Capital that raised Pluribus' total investment to date to $44 million. The startup, which specializes in network hardware virtualization for cloud data centers, also recently teamed up with Red Hat to integrate its Netvisor Fabric-based infrastructure with Red Hat OpenStack software.

Proximal Data

CEO: Rory Bolt

Proximal Data, founded in 2011, earned $2 million in Series B funding from Divergent Ventures and existing investor Avalon Ventures. The Sand Diego-based company was formed by former EMC executives with the aim of eliminating I/O bottlenecks for virtualized servers. Proximal Data's AutoCache software is designed to cache storage across virtual machines. The startup has expanded its business this year through some big channel partnerships with companies like Harwood International and TriAxis Storage Solutions.

Ravello Systems

CEO: Rami Tamir

To say 2013 has been a big year for Ravello Systems might be an understatement. Founded just two years ago, the virtualization startup scored a second round of funding in March, courtesy of Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, that brought the company's total to $26 million. But more importantly, Ravello launched the public beta of its developer service for the company's flagship Cloud Application Hypervisor.

Zerto

CEO: Ziv Kedem

Zerto was formed in 2010 by a group of storage technologists from EMC and Kashya. The company specializes in disaster recovery for virtualized data centers with its Zerto Virtual Replication (ZVR) software, a hypervisor-based replication and backup solution; ZVR 3.0 was launched earlier this year. In April, Zerto scored a $13 million round of Series C financing led by RTP Ventures with participation from existing investors, too. The funding will fuel the company's go-to-market strategy as well as expansion of Zerto's product development team.