By Sara Baier, Originally posted on revithaca.com
Exostellar, a cloud resource optimization and management company, announced today that it has completed a $5 million seed funding round led by Walden International and Nepenthe Capital LLC.
This latest round of funding builds on an exceptional year for Exostellar, which has seen an increase in demand for cloud-optimization solutions as organizations continue to shift their operations online and search for high-quality, budget-friendly cloud management solutions. In the past year, Exostellar has raised $5 million in funding and completed a successful pilot with the software company, Autodesk, Inc.
“We are excited to partner with our new investors,” says Hakim Weatherspoon, CEO and co-founder of Exostellar. “This funding will help us accelerate our product and customer roadmap execution and expand the adoption of our technology across a range of industries and innovative applications seeking to dramatically reduce their cloud spend.”
Exostellar’s platform leverages Cornell technology (patent pending and exclusively licensed to Exostellar) combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning to help enterprises reduce spending in the cloud by up to 90%, while enhancing both operational security and performance.
The company’s cloud-optimization solutions consolidate idle workloads and over-sized cloud containers—automatically moving a customer’s applications from one server to another without interruption thus allowing customers to take advantage of deeply discounted server space on the cloud spot market. The cloud spot market consists of computers that large enterprises, such as Amazon and others, rent out for server space at about 10 times less than the average rate. Exostellar’s cloud-scale software systems harness this unused space, to significantly reduce wasteful spending and increase efficient use of cloud resources.
“I am pleased to co-lead this seed financing of Exostellar with Amarjit Gill, partner of Nepenthe Capital LLC” says Lip-Bu Tan, Chairman of Walden International and Managing Director of WRVI Capital. “We will partner with Exostellar to expand their cloud-optimization solutions.”
The new round of funding will be used to scale-up the company with a focus on building a strong technical team, acquiring additional customer sign-ups, and expanding Exostellar’s product offerings.
About Exostellar: Founded in 2018 by Cornell University researchers Hakim Weatherspoon, CEO; Zhiming Shen, CTO; and Robbert van Renesse, Chief Scientist; Exostellar’s cloud-optimization solutions—technology licensed through Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing at Cornell University—help companies reduce wasteful spending and enable more efficient usage of cloud resources. Exostellar completed the National Science Foundation I-Corps program, received pre-seed funding led by Launch NY and Red Bear Angels, and is a member of the Praxis Center for Venture Development, Cornell University’s on-campus incubator for startups in engineering, digital, and physical sciences, as well as a member of Rev: Ithaca Startup Works, a community business incubator located in Ithaca, New York.
About Walden International “WI”: WI is a leading international venture capital firm founded by Lip-Bu Tan, who is also Chairman of the firm. WI provided investors access to cross-border investment opportunities with the advantage of an unrivaled Pan Asia network since 1987. The firm’s funds total over US $3.6 billion in committed capital. WI has 116 IPOs listed on 16 exchanges around the world and 75 M&As. WI focuses on high technology investments including semiconductor, software, AI / machine learning, cloud infrastructure, data management / security, robotics, etc. For more information, please visit http://www.waldenintl.com.
