SimpliVity enters the billion dollar stratosphere

SimpliVity has raised $175 million in series D funding, at a valuation of more than $1 billion. The company's total venture funding is now of $276 million.

This is a particularly noteable achievement given that SimpliVity announced general availability of OmniCube, its flagship product, just 23 months ago.

Leading the funding round was Waypoint Capital, the business enterprise for the Bertarelli family's investments, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Prior investors also contributed to the round, including Accel Partners, Charles River Ventures, DFJ Growth, Kleiner Perkins Caufield - Byers (KPCB) and Meritech Capital Partners.

According to SimpliVity, Waypoint was inspired to make the investment after transforming its own IT environments across five global sites with the vendor's hyperconverged infrastructure solution.

"As a customer, we experienced first-hand the transformational impact of SimpliVity's hyperconverged infrastructure.

"After a thorough analysis of alternatives, we were convinced SimpliVity is technologically superior, and that its unique data architecture is years ahead of the market," says Frederic Wohlwend, Waypoint Capital chief information and technology officer.

"When we learned SimpliVity was raising capital, we insisted on taking the lead. We see enormous potential in a company revolutionising IT, and growing faster than any infrastructure company in recent history," Wohlwend says.

Doron Kempel, SimpliVity CEO, says, "We are honored to have Waypoint join our extremely supportive group of investors.

"It is a unique and valuable opportunity to have an investor who is truly a customer first – with hands-on SimpliVity product experience. The continued support from our existing investors is incredibly appreciated.

"Together, these investors give us the greatest strategic latitude for the business as we continue to optimise during this time of hyper growth.

The financing will be used to fund the rapid expansion of the company and address the significant market opportunity, says SimpliVity.

SimpliVity launched its hyperconverged infrastructure platform in April 2013 and in 2014, SimpliVity grew revenues by more than 500% year-over-year; expanded with resellers into 50 countries and employees in 18; and grew its employee base to more than 400 worldwide.

SimpliVity also partnered with Cisco in August 2014 in order to expand its global reach.

Morgan Stanley served as the sole placement agent for SimpliVity.