Mendocino Scores $15M

Mendocino Software, a startup specializing in application recovery, has gotten $15 million in first-round funding, ensuring ongoing development for its standing customers (see Mendocino Software Gets $15M).

You read that right. Mendocino Software already has a small roster of users in enterprise and federal government sites. In an unusual model, the company's founders and backers planned a strategy, found a company willing to sell the basic technology they required, and then got funding to move forward.

Let's start at the top. Last March, Mendocino began as a project in the incubator program of venture firm Mayfield. With input from Mayfield managing director Peter Levine, a former senior executive at Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS), and Prashant Dholakia, another Veritas vet, a small staff researched the storage software market for hot opportunities.

They focused on application recovery. Instead of building from scratch, they looked for existing software to jumpstart their company. They found Reston, Va.-based Vyant Technologies, whose product, RealTime, is server-based software that tags application "write" requests as they occur, then stores them for reference on a separate server. This allows users to retrieve exact copies of applications by specifying a point in time -- down to the day, hour, minute, and second.

According to Mendocino, Vyant sold its intellectual property and assets to Mendocino in return for ownership in Mendocino -- specific terms undisclosed. Mendocino VP of marketing John Wernke says a handful of software architects from Vyant are now working with Mendocino as part of its 30-odd workforce. Vyant continues to function as a corporation and hasn't changed its Website. A Vyant spokesman didn't return a phone call at press time.