ThinkGrid bags venture capitalist funding

Hosted infrastructure vendor to plough funds into datacentres, partner recruitment and new hires

Hosted infrastructure vendor ThinkGrid has secured venture capitalist backing from Moscow-based firm Runa Capital.

ThinkGrid was set up three years ago to provide VARs with access to hosted Exchange, virtual desktop and VoIP offerings, which they can resell to customers.

The vendor described the level of funding it has secured from Runa Capital as "significant" and plans to use it to open more datacentres, recruit partners and build its sales and development teams.

Rob Lovell, chief executive of ThinkGrid, said the investment adds weight to its channel-focused cloud strategy.

"There are many large vendors threatening mainstream adoption of cloud by cutting out traditional channel partners and going directly to customers with restrictive and substandard cloud offerings," he added.

"The partner community has historically played a critical role in helping customers with new technology decisions [and] this is why ThinkGrid has become both successful and unique in the marketplace."

Andre Bliznyuk, a partner at Runa Capital, added: "[ThinkGrid's] channel-focused model and cloud computing services reflect the type of innovative thinking we are keen to champion."