Nimble Storage, a provider of flash-based data storage solutions which is based in the Silicon Valley, is expanding its East Coast footprint by leasing a nearly 48,000 square foot building in RTP that was once operated by drug giant GlaxoSmithKline.
The lease agreement was announced Tuesday morning by Grubb Properties and Rubenstein Partners.
It’s the second of three former GSK buildings that the joint venture has announced deals for.
“Our new East Coast home offers the ‘wow factor’ that will help us tap the region’s rich pool of high-tech talent as we expand our East Coast operations,” said Suresh Vasudevan, CEO of the San Jose-based firm, in a statement.
Nimble Storage opened at RTP office last year with initial plans to hire 100 people.
Nimble, which was founded in 2008 and began shipping hardware in 2010, says it helps clients reduce costs and also space needed for storage. With more than 1,000 customers, Nimble says it has exceeded a $100 million run rate for the fourth quarter that ended in January. More than 2,000 of its storage arrays have been sold.
Backers include Sequoia Capital, Light Speed and ACCEL Partners. Nimble closed on a $40.7 million oversubscribed round of financing in September 2012.
Nimble cracked The Wall Street Journal’s The Next Big Thing list in 2012, was a finalist for the Storage Magazine/SearchStorage Product of the Year Finalist, and made the CRN Emerging Vendor list.
Nimble also recently expanded in the Pacific, opening officers in Australia and Singapore.
The firm positions its flash-based technology as an alternative to traditional storage. It has patented an architecture that it calls Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout.
CASL enables Nimble to “accelerate access to application data by caching a copy of active hot data and metadata in flash for reads” which enables “high throughput and low latency on read transactions from storage.”
Cisco, VMware, Microsoft and Citrix are among firms that have certified Nimble’s technology.
The company also offers related services.
The latest deal
The full announcement follows:
Grubb Properties and Rubenstein Partners Announce Major Lease in Durham’s Imperial Center
Silicon Valley’s Nimble Storage to Expand East Coast Office at Newcastle South
DURHAM, N.C. (Sept. 9, 2014) – Grubb Properties and Rubenstein Partners announced today the lease of the majority of Newcastle South, a signature office building in Durham’s prestigious Imperial Center campus, to Nimble Storage, a leading Silicon Valley flash storage solutions company that is expanding its East Coast operations.
The 47,986-square-foot lease comes only six months after the joint venture partnership of Charlotte-based Grubb Properties and Philadelphia-based real estate fund manager Rubenstein Partners sold Newcastle North, a companion lab and office building, to Virginia real estate investment firm Capital Square Holdings. The joint venture leased Newcastle North in 2013 to Reichhold Industries, a leading supplier of resins, as its world headquarters and technology center. Together, the two buildings – the former GlaxoSmithKline headquarters acquired by the joint venture in 2012 — represented the largest contiguous single-story commercial space available in the I-40 corridor of the Raleigh-Durham market.
The final 38,965 square feet of Newcastle South, a doughnut-shaped building surrounding a newly landscaped park-like courtyard, is still for available for lease.
“We are excited to reposition another headquarters-quality building for another premier tenant in the vibrant Raleigh-Durham market,” said Jonathan Nance, senior vice president of Grubb Properties, which also partnered with Rubenstein Partners to acquire and quickly lease the former Sony Ericsson headquarters and research center to personal technology company Lenovo earlier this year in nearby Research Triangle Park.
“Nimble Storage represents the kind of high-caliber technology company locating and expanding in this market, one of the nation’s leading research and development hubs. This major lease at Newcastle South is the latest validation of our value-added investment strategy in North Carolina,” said Dan Doyon, director of acquisitions for Rubenstein Partners.
“Our new East Coast home offers the ‘wow factor’ that will help us tap the region’s rich pool of high-tech talent as we expand our East Coast operations,” said Suresh Vasudevan, CEO of San Jose, Calif.-based Nimble Storage, a provider of flash storage solutions that opened its first East Coast office in Research Triangle Park in 2013.
The Grubb Properties-Rubenstein Partners joint venture was represented in the transaction by Dave Mester of Grubb Properties and Sam Crutchfield of Grubb Ventures. Nimble was represented by Steve Lico, David Tipton and Edwin Yarbrough of Cresa.
About Grubb Properties
Grubb Properties, founded in 1963, creates exceptional real estate environments and provides premier customer service for our residents and tenants through the repositioning of apartment communities and office buildings and the development of multi-family communities, including our nationally trademarked Link Apartments brand. Our fully integrated management team identifies strategies that create long-term value for our clients. Grubb Properties’ growth is primarily funded through real estate investment funds with long-term horizons. People who care. Places that matter. For more information, visit www.grubbproperties.com.
About Rubenstein Partners
Rubenstein Partners, founded in 2005, is a private real estate investment management and advisory firm focused on directing and managing value-added office real estate investments, primarily in the eastern U.S. On behalf of its investors, Rubenstein has invested in more than 8.5 million square feet of office real estate assets located in New England, metro New York, the mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Southeast. For more information, visit www.rubensteinpartners.com.
Media Contacts:
Lili Curtis, Grubb Properties, lcurtis@grubbproperties.com, 704-971-4884
Dan Doyon, Rubenstein Partners, dDoyon@rubensteinpartners.com, 215-399-4620
Kristalle Cooks, Nimble Storage, Kristalle@nimblestorage.com, 408-514-3313
