[Full disclosure: Cloudability went through PIE. I work at PIE.]
Yesterday, Portland’s Cloudability announced $8.7 million in Series A financing, led by Foundry Group. And it got quite a bit of pickup—as you’ll see below—drawing attention to both the company and the whole Portland startup scene.
I thought I’d share the three things I found most interesting about the announcement, and then I’ll let you get to the other posts.
1) This is the second investment by Foundry Group in Portland. Foundry also has money in at Urban Airship. Why is this a big deal? Well, for starters, Foundry is one of the best early stage investors around, so having more of their presence in Portland is welcome. Second, they’re from Boulder. And Boulder and Portland have a great deal in common. So it will be nice to get a little more sister city activity going.
2) Wieden+Kennedy participated in the round. While W+K was thoughtful enough to start PIE—a startup accelerator focused on early stage tech companies—it has never been terribly clear if there would be other opportunities for the ad agency to participate in the startup scene. Now, with the campaigns they’re doing for Urban Airship and the willingness to provide funding, W+K continues to become an interesting component of our startup scene.
3) Finally, it’s a brilliant example of how an early stage startup can use startup accelerators to their advantage. Cloudability started out at in the founding class of PIE’s accelerator program, joined TechStars Cloud accelerator as part of its first program, and managed to round out some additional funding thanks to the Portland Seed Fund. Now they’ve also got Dave McClure‘s 500 startups providing capital, as well. Not a bad way to string together some awesomeness
So that’s what I found interesting. What did everyone else like? Let’s take a look.
Cloudability — On Cloud Nine: $8.7M Series A
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Today over 3,000 people in 100 countries are using Cloudability. Collectively they have spent over $100 million on cloud services, and added over 10,000 cloud accounts. If ever there was an advert for the power of the cloud, this is it. Three guys have an idea, and one year later that idea is being used across the planet.
Foundry Group — Our Investment in Cloudability
With Cloudability, anyone in an organization can immediately see overages, waste and sprawl of cloud resources. This also includes predictive analytics of what future spend may look like, as well. In the future, the data they collect across clouds will become very valuable when modeling for customers what their costs and usage could be in different scenarios designed to improve efficiency. Furthermore, we believe that compliance issues for cloud services will only increase and Cloudability will be in the best position to analyze and report on such data.
TechCrunch — Cloudability Raises $8.7 Million From Foundry Group For Service To Track Cloud Spending
This is yet another example of why IT needs to differentiate as service providers. In an interview, Cloudability Founder Mat Ellis said the days of command and control are fading for IT. We are at a point in time that compares to the early days of the industrial age. As companies grew at the turn of the 20th century, they needed their own power plants. Those corporate power plants were eventually outsourced to utility companies that specialized in providing different service packages. IT is going the same way. It is getting outsourced. IT needs to find their way to be leaders that provide services such as lists of preferred cloud service providers. They need to be the experts the business groups trust.
GigaOm — Cloudability nets $8.7M to manage more cloud spending
The cash will add features and beef up the “Tribes” feature that lets companies tell how many people in each department are using what services. The company will staff up to achieve both goals with Ellis expecting to double the 15-person headcount in a year. Cloudability is adding Jason Mendelson, managing director for Foundry Group, and Jason Seats, managing director of Tech Stars Cloud and the founder of Slicehost, to its board of directors.
Venturebeat — TechStars alum Cloudability snags $8.7M from Foundry to track your cloud costs
Cloudability got its start as part of the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE), and it later took part in the TechStars Cloud program. Since that time, the company has grown quickly. It is now tracking more than $120 million in cloud spending by its 3,000 free and paid customers. Revenue is in the “hundreds of thousands,” Ellis said.
The Next Web — Cloud cost management startup Cloudability picks up $8.7m from Foundry, 500 Startups and others
Cloudability charges on the freemium model, with a free service, and a paid tier. Its paid service starts at $49 a month, but scales based on total customer spend. That feels low. Given that the product will often be used to track budgets in the millions, to charge but a fifty-spot feels underpriced.
GeekWire — Cloudability raises $8.7M to ID spikes in cloud spending
The Foundry Group has led an $8.7 million series A financing round in Cloudability, a Portland upstart that helps companies get a better handle on how much they are spending across various cloud computing services. Launched last November, the free service is now used by over 3,000 people, including customers such as OpenSesame, Slideshare and Savvr
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The Oregonian — Cloudability raises $8.7 million in venture backing, plans to grow Portland office
Ellis said he plans a burst of hiring, adding software engineers, marketers and salespeople, and that the Portland office could double in size this year.
Portland Business Journal — Cloudability lands $8.7M in venture capital
As subscribers to the Business Journal can read in Friday’s paper, Cloudability’s participation in three prominent startup incubator programs — including two in Portland — has helped it navigate the complicated venture capital world.
Under the Radar — Cloudability Raises $8.7 Million in Series A #UTRAlum
A huge congratulations to Mat, JR, and the entire Cloudability team on raising $8.7 Million in Series A funding! This round was led by Foundry Group, 500 Startups,Trinity Ventures and Wieden + Kennedy. Not only did Cloudability present at Under the Radar in April, they swept their category and the entire day as the overall winner.
Diversity Limited — Cloudability Scores Huge Series A
It’s exciting times at Cloudability HQ as the team announces an awesome $8.7M Series A round led by the awesome crew from Foundry Group. I first came across Cloudability during their launch last year at Structure – I was instantly excited and that led me to accept an invitation to come on board as an adviser, and then take part in their initial angel round. Fast forward 12 months and here’s an awesome validation of what Mat and team have built – $8.7M in funding from some great names like Foundry, 500 Startups, Trinity. Also the untold part of this is the number of small initial investors who are taking part in this subsequent round (myself included).
PEhub — Cloudability Raises Series A Led by Foundry Group
The Foundry Group led an $8.7 million Series A funding of Cloudability, which provides a platform to manage a user’s cloud services. As part of the funding, Foundry Managing Director Jason Mendelson and Jason Seats, managing director of Tech Stars Cloud and the founder of Slicehost, have joined the board. Also participating in the round are 500 Startups, Trinity Ventures and Wieden + Kennedy. Cloudability had previously raised about $1.1 million in seed funding from Trinity, Walden Venture Capital and angels investors, according to Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB.com).
eConsultancy — Cloudability pulls in big bucks to keep an eye on your cloud spending
Enter Cloudability, a Portland startup that humorously states that on its homepage “we cover your *aas” and which just raised nearly $9m in Series A funding. The company’s offering is simple, yet potentially very useful to those using cloud services: through a single account, and with no manual data input required, Cloudability tracks a company’s spending across multiple cloud vendors and helps predict future costs.
For more information or to sign up, visit Cloudability.
