IP SAN startup LeftHand Networks announced today it has won $20 million in Series B funding on the back of significant customer traction, bringing its total equity investment to date to $39 million. Yaaaaay! Some good news! (See LeftHand Picks Up $20M Round.)
Sprout Group, the venture arm of Credit Suisse First Boston Corp., led the oversubscribed round. Also contributing were LeftHand's existing investors, which include Boulder Ventures, Garage Technology Ventures, Ironside Ventures LLC, Portage Venture Partners, Sequel Venture Partners, Vista Ventures, Wasatch Venture Fund, and William Blair New World Ventures (see LeftHand's Latest Deal and Lefthand Grabs Another Fistful ).
Company executives declined to say whether its valuation rose with the additional investment; in other words, whether it was an "up round" or not. But it expects to be profitable sometime in 2004.
The Boulder, Colo., firm will use the investment to expand its sales, support, and business operations in the U.S. and internationally. "Were not building a huge direct sales force, but we want to be able to pull more end-user business through our reseller channels," says David Bangs, VP of sales and marketing at LeftHand.
Customers are apparently purchasing LeftHand's Ethernet-based storage arrays, which its been shipping since late 2001, to address growth of email and database applications, disaster recovery, and disk-based backup, the company says.
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