Microsoft Ramps Up Cloud Strategy with Avere Acquisition

Last week, Microsoft formally announced its acquisition of Avere Systems, a leading provider of cloud storage solutions. According to Jason Zander, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure, “By bringing together Avere’s storage expertise with the power of Microsoft’s cloud, customers will benefit from industry-leading innovations that enable the largest, most complex high-performance workloads to run in Microsoft Azure.”

Menlo was the lead investor in Avere’s Series A funding round in November 2008. Since then, the company has achieved enormous success selling its low-latency access solutions to a diverse range of data center and cloud customers, including Sony, NASA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Inova Health, and John Hopkins University—to name a few.

Menlo is very fortunate to have backed Avere’s amazing team on more than one occasion. Avere’s co-founders, CEO Ron Bianchini and CTO Mike Kazar, also founded Spinnaker Networks, another standout Menlo investment (acquired by Network Appliance in 2003). Together, Bianchini and Kazar have changed the face of data storage through their numerous innovations to the field.

Menlo Ventures actively invests in market-leading companies that offer novel cloud services and technologies, and the integration of Avere with Microsoft Azure’s hybrid cloud strategy is nothing short of outstanding. We wish the team continued success as part of the Microsoft family.