Oct, 2001 : BladeLogic Gets $6 Million in First-Round Funding

📅 October 23, 2001 - BladeLogic, Inc. (bladelogic.com), an early-stage company with more than 50 enterprise customers, announced yesterday that it has received $6 million in first-round funding, led jointly by Battery Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners.

BladeLogic is creating the industry's first multi-platform solution formanaging complex networks of servers running a variety of operating systems.Its server management solutions help systems administrators instantlyidentify and fix widespread problems such as inconsistent softwareinstallations, vulnerability to viruses and performance problems resultingfrom software misconfigurations.
This initial funding marks a significant step forward for the company.Customers include Alliance Capital, AT&T Wireless, Bank of New York,BellSouth, Fleet Bank, Fidelity Investments, Global Crossing, ING AdvisorsNetwork, Lucas Films, Microsoft, Qwest and RSA Security.
"Enterprises and service providers are desperately seeking solutions toaddress the growing challenges of managing large-scale server farms," saidRobert Goodman, general partner, Bessemer. "This demand is increasingexponentially, given the explosion in numbers of servers and the lack ofrobust management tools for today's Internet architectures."
BladeLogic has emerged as a leader in server management by developing aninnovative set of solutions that allow systems administrators to provision,configure and manage thousands of servers across all of a leading operatingenvironments, including UNIX, Linux and Windows, using familiar commandsfrom a central location.
"Companies can't keep up with their systems' infrastructure - and the uglytruth is that systems administrators spend far more time responding toemergencies than preventing them, especially with cutbacks in IT staffing,"said Dev Ittycheria, president and CEO of BladeLogic. "The market urgentlyneeds comprehensive server management solutions designed for today's ITarchitectures. Our products meet this objective."
"BladeLogic is the first company to redefine what it means to manage anetwork of servers proactively - with a set of tools that can be used withany server, any operating system, anywhere in the world," said Dave Tabors,general partner at Battery Ventures. "Its products provide a clear anddemonstrable ROI immediately." BladeLogic's founding team brings togetherseveral of the executives who helped shape the Web hosting industry.
Ittycheria and Vijay Manwani, CTO, were pioneers in Internet applicationsand infrastructure management solutions. Ittycheria was most recently anEntrepreneur-in-Residence at Bessemer, and Manwani was anEntrepreneur-in-Residence at Battery. BladeLogic acquired core technologyfrom Network Shell, based in San Mateo, Calif. The founder of Network Shell,Thomas Kraus, is BladeLogic's chief product evangelist.
"Tapping the strengths of Battery and Bessemer will accelerate our abilityto bring BladeLogic's technology to a broader market," said Ittycheria. BothDavid Tabors and Robert Goodman serve on BladeLogic's board of directors.BladeLogic will continue to aggressively develop new solutions for all of aleading operating environments and cultivate strategic technologypartnerships around the world.