SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CNEX Labs, Inc., a private semiconductor company developing solid-state storage controllers and software for cloud, hyperscale, and enterprise data centers, today announced it has closed its Series C round of financing led by Microsoft Ventures and joined by existing CNEX investors, bringing total funding to over $60 million to date. CNEX delivers next-generation solid-state-drive (SSD) technology critical to data center servers and storage for the trillion-dollar industry transition to the cloud. The company will use the funding for mass production and system integration for lead customers of its revolutionary SSD controller products.
Worldwide data generation is expected to leap from four zettabytes per year in 2013 to 40 zettabytes per year by 2020 (one zettabyte is one billion terabytes). The sheer volume, variety, and velocity of data is driving the need for innovation in data center technology to store and deliver this data.
CNEX has teamed with tier-one data center customers and manufacturers of solid-state storage, including NAND flash and other storage media, to address these challenges with a patented, ground-up re-design of the traditional SSD controller architecture. CNEX controller products are designed to meet the demanding requirements of the next generation of hyperscale computing, where storage performance, endurance, and power efficiency have become critical at these massive scales.
“CNEX is developing the next big innovation for solid-state storage through semiconductor and software solutions,” said Nagraj Kashyap, corporate vice president at Microsoft Ventures. “As data generation grows, so too must storage systems. Our support will help CNEX accelerate its contribution to new breakthroughs in the evolution toward a cloud-first world.”
“We place a high value on the expertise that comes with this commitment from Microsoft Ventures,” said Alan Armstrong, CEO and Co-Founder of CNEX Labs. “The industry sees impressive leadership from Microsoft in shaping a new generation of data centers, and the strategic guidance from Microsoft Ventures will be a key asset to CNEX as we launch our storage products into mass production for the global data center ecosystem.”
About CNEX Labs, Inc.
CNEX is a privately held company founded in 2013 and funded by venture capital and strategic investments from Fortune 500 companies in storage and networking. CNEX is chartered to deliver innovative storage system solutions in the form of semiconductors and software. CNEX teamed with solid-state storage manufacturers and data center customers to develop revolutionary PCIe SSD controller ASICs that deliver high-performance with low and predictable latency, and flexibility for software-defined-storage. CNEX controller products are key to accelerating the capabilities of big data compute and analytics for the next generation of cloud, hyperscale and enterprise data centers. For more information, please visit www.cnexlabs.com.
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