Engine Yard Closes $15 Million in Series B Financing
______________________________________________________________
Investment from New Enterprise Associates, Amazon.com, and Benchmark
Capital to help Company cement position as leading Ruby and Rails in the
cloud provider
SAN FRANCISCO, July 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Engine Yard, provider of the
leading Ruby and Rails deployment platform, today announced it has closed a
Series B financing round of $15 million led by New Enterprise Associates,
Inc. (NEA), with participation from Amazon.com and current investor
Benchmark Capital. Peter Sonsini, Partner at NEA, joins Engine Yard's board
of directors.
"Engine Yard's exceptional track record and substantial mindshare
within the open-source community position the company to be at the
forefront of two key emerging markets in the computing space: Ruby and
Rails and cloud computing," said Mr. Sonsini. "I look forward to working
with the Engine Yard team to build the business and take the company to the
next growth stage."
The new funding will help Engine Yard accelerate its business, bolster
R&D of their forthcoming cloud computing cluster platform, and continue to
drive innovation with its Ruby open-source projects, Rubinius
( rubini.us ) and Merb ( merbivore.com ).
"Ruby and Rails are gaining traction in the enterprise, as companies
look for alternatives to Java and .NET that would free up resources, speed
up development, and get them to market faster," said Lance Walley, Engine
Yard co-founder and CEO. "Engine Yard is committed to delivering the
deployment infrastructure, services, and in-house expertise to take Ruby
and Rails applications to the cloud. We're pleased that NEA and Amazon.com
share our vision and, through their investment, have committed to helping
Engine Yard execute on this vision."
Engine Yard offers a unique combination of technology, services, and
technical leadership that is helping fuel the growing Ruby and Rails
market. The Company's deployment platform combines high-end clustering
resources to run Ruby and Rails applications securely in the cloud, while
Engine Yard's team of Ruby and Rails technical experts delivers 24x7
maintenance and support. These same technical experts lead and participate
in the open-source projects helping drive the future of Ruby and Rails.
"Amazon Web Services has provided infrastructure services in the cloud
for over two years and we believe that cloud computing will be a large
industry with companies providing a range of different services," said Jeff
Blackburn, Amazon.com Senior Vice President for Business Development.
"Engine Yard is passionate about providing their customers with scalable
and reliable cloud-based infrastructure for their Ruby on Rails
applications."
About NEA
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a leading venture capital firm
focused on helping entrepreneurs create and build major new enterprises
that use technology to improve the way we live, work and play. Since its
founding in 1978, the firm has followed the same core principles:
supporting its entrepreneurs, providing an excellent return to its limited
partners, and practicing its profession with the highest standards and
respect. Through its affiliated funds, NEA focuses on investments at all
stages of a company's development, from seed stage through IPO. With
approximately $8.5 billion in committed capital, NEA's experienced
management team has invested in over 550 companies, of which more than 160
have gone public and more than 240 have been acquired. NEA has U.S. offices
in Chevy Chase, Maryland; Menlo Park, California; and Baltimore, Maryland.
In addition, New Enterprise Associates (India) Pvt. Ltd. has an office in
Bangalore, India and New Enterprise Associates (Beijing) Ltd. has offices
in Beijing and Shanghai, China. For additional information, visit
nea.com.
About Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital, a leading venture capital firm, was founded in 1995
to help talented entrepreneurs with original ideas build successful
technology companies. Benchmark's general partners take a team-oriented,
labor-intensive approach to venture investing to deliver a superior level
of service to the firm's portfolio companies. Benchmark's portfolio
includes high-profile start-ups like Infinera, MySQL, OpenTable, Second
Life, Tellme, Yelp, and Zillow, and franchise companies such as eBay,
Juniper Networks and Red Hat. The firm manages nearly $2.8 billion in
committed venture capital. For more information on Benchmark Capital, visit
its website at benchmark.com.
About Engine Yard
Engine Yard provides the platform and expert support for deploying Ruby
and Rails applications to the cloud, giving customers the peace of mind and
stability needed for building sites and applications on demand. Engine Yard
has a track record of hiring expert talent and fostering open-source
innovation, including stewardship of the Rubinius (http://www.rubini.us)
and Merb (http://www.merbivore.com) projects. Headquartered in San
Francisco, Calif., Engine Yard was founded in 2006 and is backed by
Benchmark Capital, New Enterprise Associates, and Amazon.com. Visit
engineyard.com. |
