Nutanix earmarks VC windfall for channel building

Datacentre start-up to plough proceeds of record $101m in Series D funding partly into into training, enablement and demo kit

Virtualised datacentre platform start-up Nutanix is gearing up for channel expansion after scoring $101m in funding.

The San Jose-based outfit has closed a round of Series D financing co-led by Riverwood Capital and SAP Ventures, taking the total raised over four rounds to $172.2m.

It claimed this is the largest single financing round in the history of the converged infrastructure market.

The new funds have been earmarked for global expansion, R&D and boosting service delivery and sales and marketing capabilities, as well as dedicated channel resource.

"The funding will enable us to accelerate our international expansion, including onboarding additional channel partners to extend our reach in the UK and throughout EMEA," Howard Ting, vice president of marketing at Nutanix told CRN.

"We will invest more in training, enablement and NFR [not for resale] equipment for our partners to help us rapidly scale the business."

Jeff Parks, founding partner of Riverwood Capital, described Nutanix as one of a very small class of companies that is "transforming the way enterprises deliver IT".

"Nutanix represents the future of datacenter infrastructure and is a best-in-class platform to run all virtualised enterprise workloads," added Jai Das, managing director at SAP Ventures.

Nutanix claimed it has rung up over $100m in sales over its short trading history, boasting 13 customers with a spend of over $1m and drawing a third of sales from outside the US.

More than half of its customers purchase again after only six months, it claimed.

Barrie Desmond, group marketing director at Exclusive Networks, said instances of nine-figure funding rounds are very rare.

"We think Nutanix is one of the next big things that is going to fly," he said.

"This [funding] will accelerate our go-to-market plans with Nutanix and gives us the confidence to invest in them. When you get such a big drop of investment it eases your concerns about acquisition - in the storage space, start-ups tend to be acquired a bit more quickly than other sectors."