Storage Start-Up InterSAN Banks $17.8 Million In VC Funds

InterSAN

The round, lead by Worldview Technology Partners and including investors SoundView Ventures, Alliance Ventures, Kumar Malavalli and Morgan Keegan, brings the total investment in the company to more than $28 million, said Chris Melville, president and CEO. "It's been a challenging experience, but it's nice to have the money in the bank," Melville said.

InterSAN develops a software-only solution to help IT organizations manage their data storage growth while decreasing costs via centralized, policy-based management of their data, said Melville.

The application, Pathline, automates the storage provisioning process, under which storage capacity in various devices from multiple vendors on a heterogeneous SAN can be reapportioned between applications as the requirements of those applications change. "Today, for certain applications, you need to over-provision storage capacity to make sure enough is available," Melville said. "That wastes money and wastes disk space."

The main competition to Pathline remains spreadsheets, which data managers use to map applications to get a picture of devices, said Melville.

Pathline started shipping in December and recorded its first customer win last quarter. InterSAN currently sells mainly direct but is looking to develop its indirect channels, Melville said. "Today, we are talking to the major players, but will shortly move towards discussions with regional and large local VARs," he said.