Intel-backed Israeli startup Pliops, which manufactures storage processor technology, has raised $30 million, the company announced this week.
The second funding round included cash from major sources such as Xylinx, Western Digital Capital and Intel Capital, which led the company’s $10 million first round of funding in 2017, according to Steve Fingerhut, president and chief business officer of the Ramat Gan-based firm.
“There will be collaboration on go-to-market,” he said. “We will make sure our solutions work with theirs. Who knows what else might happen in the future.”
Fingerhut added that storage processor technology is a new creation that significantly increases a number of storage capabilities managed in software, in addition to specific applications such as cloud-operated databases.
“We see the demand for dedicated processors so that performance can be increased without increasing the need for a larger number of servers,” he said. “More servers becomes a pain for customers of all sizes. So far, we are not aware of other companies doing this. Certainly, there’s a lot of interest in application acceleration. But our focus on the storage aspect, we believe, is a unique proposition.”
Pliops has developed the core technology and is scheduled to release it sometime this year, according to Fingerhut.
“To prove the technology, we are talking to the companies building and implementing the infrastructure,” he said. “The problems large public companies are also seen in private clouds. And we see use cases in legacy environments as well. We will look at a broader ecosystem of vendors including systems integrators and channel partners.”
