Storage firm Pivot3 raises $24m

SPRING, Texas--Pivot3, a manufacturer of storage product designed for the video surveillance industry, in January nabbed $24 million in series C venture funding, which company officials said will boost sales and marketing efforts and new product development. The funding round was led by new investor Mesirow Financial Capital Partners IX and also included new investor Silver Creek Ventures, along with existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and InterWest Partners. Pivot3, which touts itself as the inventor of virtual distributed RAID, last year entered into the scalable network storage market with an IP-based storage cluster that the company said "delivers up to five times the performance at half of the cost of competitive solutions." Robert Fernander, chief executive officer of Pivot3, said the funding would be used to accelerate the company's position in the market. Since focusing its efforts in the surveillance space, IP-based solutions from Pivot3 have been installed as part of video surveillance deployments at The 101 Casino and the city of Long Beach among others. The company also has plans to use the funds to develop its technology for use in other applications within the security industry. "The technology is horizontally applicable," he said. "It is focused on video surveillance vertical now, but later we will expand into other opportunities and we are looking at the fall for that." Storage equals out to be approximately 50 percent of the total cost of a surveillance system, Fernander said. End users' awareness of this is turning storage solutions like Pivot3's into a key part of a purchase, instead of an afterthought, he said. "We believe that storage is not a commodity anymore," said Mark Modica, chief financial officer of the company. "It is strategic and clients are saying that it is the first thing we look at and the first thing we buy." Partnering with manufacturers like Axis Communications, IQinVision and Lenel and systems integrators such as Southwest Surveillance Systems has contributed to the company's big first year, Fernander said, and that will continue to be a prime initiative for the company as it moves forward. "We need to partner with these people for us to be successful," he said. "But at the same time we can't allow us to be managed by our partners. Customers are seeking us out and they say they want to purchase directly from us and for large transactions, we will talk with them and then bring an integrator in."