GreenBytes Gets $12M VC Funding, Releases Its First All-SSD Array

The new B-round of funding brings the total venture capital investment in the company, which was founded in 2007, to about $20 million.

The new funds will be used to help the Ashaway, R.I.-based company develop its storage arrays while expanding its sales, marketing and channel development, said Matt Aitkenhead, vice president of sales.

[Related: EMC Acquires XtremIO, Becomes First Top-tier Vendor With All-Flash Array ]

GreenBytes in 2010 came to market with its first array, a hybrid appliance called the HA-3000, which features both SSDs and spinning hard drives with a single controller. It targets the backup market by providing high-speed data deduplication.

The company more recently introduced its Solidarity, an all-SSD array with dual controllers targeting the primary storage array market for SMB customers, Aitkenhead said. The first Solidarity solution is currently being installed in production environments, he said.

Both units feature Flash-based memory caches for high-speed deduplication and I/Os, both of which are based on the same software stack, he said.

GreenBytes' new funding and the release of its all-SSD Solidarity array cap a month of big news for the Flash-based array industry.

EMC in May acquired XtremIO, an Israel-based developer of all-Flash storage arrays, making EMC the first top-tier storage vendor to state its intent to offer such solutions.

EMC's move was followed shortly afterwards with the release of an all-Flash storage array from Pure Storage less than a year after the Mountain View, Calif.-based company came out of stealth mode.

GreenBytes' go-to-market strategy is focused exclusively on channel partners, Aitkenhead said. The company is currently recruiting solution providers.

"Our systems are well-suited for virtualization projects," he said. "They can accommodate a wide range of performance capabilities, particularly virtual desktop software. We want to talk to some partners who are suited for particular verticals. We are also building our geographical sales management capabilities to better work with regional partners."