Scentric, a startup focused on emerging storage technology, is off to a fast start.
Investors led by HIG Capital have invested $5.6 million in the firm.
Other investors include Valhalla Partners, several Atlanta area angels, Imlay Investments and the Georgia Tech Advanced Technology Development Center Seed Capital Fund.
Scentric — a combination of storage and centric – was launched earlier this year.
On its web site, Scentric outlines its vision for the storage industry.
“(W)e recognize the great strides made by the storage industry in solving the problems of managing storage infrastructure. But we also believe that they solve only a small piece of the overall problem faced by the enterprise IT; a problem which lies outside the scope of storage infrastructure administration,” the company says. “No matter how good these tools are, they incapable of dealing with the problem of the sheer quantity of data generated everyday or the dynamic needs of multiple applications. Without new tools to make storage understand the application environment, IT Administrators are overwhelmed, and that’s where Scentric comes in.”
Scentric is developing what it sees as a long term solution that marries advanced storage hardware and software with what it calls “a new generation of intelligent and automated solutions.”
Sanjay Sehgal is co-founder and CEO at Scentric. The other co-founder is Hemant Kurande, who serves as chief technology officer.
Both have extensive experience in the storage industry. Sehgal was chief operating officer at iVivity, which develops chip technology. Kurande was a co-founder of Storability Software.
“We’ve been particularly impressed with strength of the Scentric team and their ability to attract top storage talent to Atlanta,” said David Sung, managing director at HIG Capital, in a statement. “We believe the management team’s experience and focus on technical innovation will enable Scentric to deliver compelling solutions to some of the most pressing problems faced by IT administrators.”
Hooks Johnston, general partner at Valhalla, said his firm’s investment was based in part on emerging demands from corporate customers for storage services.
“We believe that Scentric’s vision beyond traditional storage management will enable corporations to dramatically improve the way they store and manage data,” Johnston said. “Our conversations with Fortune 500 companies about their long-term vision for managing storage and application resources confirmed our belief that Scentric’s solutions will be enthusiastically received by the market.”
Sehgal, Kurande, Sung and Johnston make up the company’s board.
Filling out Scentric’s management team are Swapan Roy, vice president of engineering, and Nik Simpson as director of marketing. Roy co-founded Telematix Corporation in 2001, and developed low-power products for the 802.11 Wi-Fi market. He was responsible for system design, overall software architecture, and product integration. Simpson joined Scentric from DataCore He also has served as chief technologist at Intergraph.
“We have a uniquely talented team of storage industry professionals with broad expertise in everything from hardware and software design to systems administration in Fortune 500 accounts,” Sehgal said. “This team of experts will turn our vision into a suite of products that will take our customers beyond management of storage infrastructure and help them solve emerging data and information management problems.”
Scentric: www.scentric.com
