Zynstra announces $8.4 million Series B funding

Zynstra, the pioneer in cloud managed server appliances for small and medium sized businesses (SMB’s), announces the completion of an $8.4 million Series B funding round. This brings the total amount raised in its first year since public launch to just over $12.5 million. The financing was led by Octopus Investments, with additional investors including: Richard Brennan, former EVP Global Marketing at Orange Group, Tom Vari, former CIO of Cable at Rogers Communications Inc. and Jon Craton, Zynstra’s Chairman and former founder and CEO of Cramer.

The company will use the funds to continue to develop a growing UK channel presence, further invest in product innovation, and support entry into the North American market.

Zynstra launched its hybrid cloud solution in July 2013 and earlier this year won ‘most innovative product for SMB’ at the 2014 UK Cloud Awards. Its product suite redresses the balance between SMBs and larger enterprise IT. The company has already announced three products this year to supplement its hybrid cloud portfolio; O365 Connect, Education and SMB IT appliances, all designed to deliver the perfect blend of on-premise and cloud IT services, and with the economics typically associated with the public cloud.

“When we started developing our initial offering three years ago, we knew we had a great solution. Since then the market has moved relentlessly in our direction, embracing a hybrid approach to IT,” said Zynstra co-founder and CEO Nick East. “Our first year since publically launching has seen strong growth in our customer base, and in the number of significant partnerships signed.

“Businesses are reconsidering the way they purchase technology – seeking a significantly lower administrative burden, greater flexibility and a predictable opex payment model. At the same time, we are facing one of the largest server infrastructure refreshes of recent times when the Windows Server 2003 platform reaches the end of support in July 2015. It’s a compelling time to consider refreshing an IT estate, and a hybrid approach is becoming the new norm. We anticipate even faster growth over the next 12 months as a result.”

MADE.com, the bespoke and designer furniture company, became a Zynstra customer earlier this year. “We’re growing fast, both in the UK and overseas, so we needed an office IT solution that is easy and supports our expansion plans,” said Jonathan Howell, CTO at made.com. “Zynstra has helped us to achieve consistency internally and free up our time to work on other more strategic projects.”

Commenting on the investment, Frederic Lardieg, a member of the Ventures team at Octopus Investments, said: “From the outset it was clear that the experienced team at Zynstra had a really exciting product. What we’ve seen proves that this really is the right time for this technology in the SMB market. The UK has seen fantastic development and we’re confident that the team will bring the same success to North America when they launch in that market. We’re delighted to offer our continued investment and support to Zynstra.”