Startup Green Cloud Technologies Nabs $5.6 Million Funding Round

Green Cloud Technologies, a channel friendly infrastructure-as-a-service startup serving small and medium-sized businesses, recently scored a $5.6 million Series C equity financing round that brings its total funding to date to nearly $10 million.

Founded in December 2011, Green Cloud Technologies is led by several former employees of Nuvox Communications, a Greenville, S.C.-based competitive local exchange carrier that was acquired in 2009 by Windstream, another big telecommunications player, for $643 million.

Green Cloud, also based in Greenville, partners with VMware, Cisco, NetApp and BroadSoft to deliver server virtualization, disaster recovery and hosted PBX services.

Green Cloud sells exclusively through the channel and has a partner program that consists of managed service providers, telecom distributors, integrators and consultants. Its founder, Charles L. Houser, led business development for Synnex's telecommunications division prior to starting the company.

[Related: Big Data Startup SiSense Raises $10 Million In Venture Funding ]

Based on FlexPod, Green Cloud's infrastructure runs Cisco UCS, NetApp storage, Cisco Nexus switching and Cisco ASR routing, and VMware vSphere, vCenter, vCloud, and vShield are also in the mix.

"Technically, this means that our network is geared to achieve timely, consistent deployments while being optimized for a multitude of environments and applications," according to a description on the company's website.

Green Cloud, in a press release last week, said it plans to use its latest funding round, led by Alabama-based telecommunications carrier Millry Corporation, to boost sales and marketing and step up its data center investments. The startup is planning to expand into the south Florida, Greater Atlanta, Gulf Coast and the Research Triangle region of North Carolina.

Green Cloud Technologies also said Walter Alessandrini, a telecom industry veteran who was previously chairman and CEO of Avanex, has joined its board of directors.

"We are excited about our follow-on investment in this exploding segment of the cloud ecosystem," Annice Jordan, CFO at Millry Corporation, an Alabama-based telco that is Green Cloud's biggest investor, said in a statement.

PUBLISHED APRIL 3, 2013