LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rackspace®, the open cloud company, today announced it has given almost quarter of a million pounds worth of cloud hosting services and support for free to 300 members of the Rackspace Startups Programme since it started in the UK six months ago. This is in addition to many other benefits members have received, such as mentoring, expert technical advice and access to networking events. All of these benefits are helping power new UK businesses to succeed, and are provided by Rackspace through over 50 partners, including premier incubators, accelerators, associations and investors.
Jeff Cotten, MD Rackspace International, said: “It’s been incredibly satisfying to watch the UK Startup Programme ramp up as more and more entrepreneurs take advantage of the cloud computing resources and other benefits on offer. We were a startup once, and know how important support like this is to new companies seeking to innovate and disrupt markets as rapidly and inexpensively as possible. It doesn’t stop here, either – we plan to expand this programme to other regions next year.”
Cloud-powered startups
Rackspace makes available cloud services and support for free to each programme member every month. These cloud services are already accelerating the growth and development of these dynamic new ventures by adding scalability, flexibility, control and automation to their IT infrastructure.
Matt Bandy, co-founder of social and business network, GetLunched, said: “The Rackspace Startup Programme has been essential to our growth so far. We use Rackspace’s Cloud to host GetLunched.com, which allows us to keep IT costs to a minimum and gives our infrastructure the scalability and performance we need to manage demand. We’ve also benefited from Rackspace’s proactive service and start-up support, the likes of which is crucial to the successful development of new UK startups, and will no doubt be vital to our continued growth.”
Chris Bradley, founder of online content collection and sharing tool, Publicate, said: “Publicate runs phenomenally well on Rackspace’s Public Cloud, which gives us cost-effective scalability as our growth accelerates. This infrastructure, plus the outstanding support we receive from the company’s Rackers as part of their Startup Programme, has been essential to our success to date.”
Education for future UK plc
Some elements of the Rackspace Startup Programme, such as networking events, are open to any UK startup, and are part of the company’s wider education programme, which includes the Rackspace Academy, launched in June. The Rackspace Academy helps businesses of all sizes learn how to get the best out of cloud computing – especially the hybrid cloud. It consists of events such as Unlocked: the hybrid cloud – the next of which is taking place in London on 19 November – workshops and webinars, plus a range of educational materials, from classroom-based training to online learning – all offered for free to any business, Rackspace customer or not. The next classroom-based training session, Cloud: Hands-on Training, will be held in Manchester on 25 November.
Partnering with major players
The high profile partners involved in the Rackspace Startup Programme include Techstars, Dreamstake, Wayra, Seedcamp, Oxygen Accelerator and Accelerator Academy. Partners located outside of London – ensuring programme access for startups throughout the UK – include ignite100 in Newcastle, dotForge in Sheffield and four organisations in Ireland: Wayra, NDRC, Propeller Venture Accelerator and Ustart.
Supporting quotes
John Webb, director for startups and developers at Rackspace, said: “The Rackspace Academy and Startup Programme allow us to provide a compelling package of free or discounted cloud services, expertise, events and other resources to new ventures throughout the UK. They spearhead our efforts to help more new businesses drive growth in the wider economy.”
Jon Bradford, managing director of startup accelerator Techstars, said: “With its Startup Programme, Rackspace plays an active role in the UK startup scene – engaging with the community through events and networking, and providing direct mentoring and advisory to the ventures.”
Paul Dowling, founder and CEO of accelerator Dreamstake, agrees, saying: “Over the past six months Rackspace has done a fantastic job amongst the tech startup community in London and beyond. The Rackspace Startup Programme offers pragmatic and tangible benefits to startups at just the time they most need support.”
About Rackspace
Rackspace® (NYSE: RAX) is the global leader in hybrid cloud and founder of OpenStack®, the open-source operating system for the cloud. Hundreds of thousands of customers look to Rackspace to deliver the best-fit infrastructure for their IT needs, leveraging a product portfolio that allows workloads to run where they perform best—whether on the public cloud, private cloud, dedicated servers, or a combination of platforms. The company’s award-winning Fanatical Support® helps customers successfully architect, deploy and run their most critical applications. Headquartered in San Antonio, TX, Rackspace operates data centres on four continents. Rackspace is featured on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For and placed 7th in ‘The Sunday Times Best Companies To Work For’ listing. For more information, visit www.rackspace.co.uk.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Rackspace Hosting could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected development, performance or market acceptance associated with the Performance Cloud Servers; anticipated operational and financial benefits from the Performance Cloud Servers; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that expected benefits from the Performance Cloud Servers may not materialize because the services are not generally accepted in the marketplace, which could occur due to certain factors including (i) a failure to market the products or services cost effectively, differentiate the products and services from competitive products and services or communicate differentiations effectively, (ii) the reliability, quality or compatibility associated with the products or services, (iii) changes in technology which adversely affect the benefits of the product, (iv) slowdowns in the general economy or technology industry that impact consumer spending habits, (v) internal strategy decisions that impact the products and services, and (vi) and other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2013, filed with the SEC on August 9, 2013. Except as required by law, Rackspace Hosting assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
