Venture Capital Firms

I/O Gateway Systems Become Easier with Aprius

Founded in June of 2006, Aprius is the newest company that bids to revolutionize I/O gateways and the products that Aprius offers are solutions that virtualize and pool the I/O gateway, high performance and shared storage, cost effective host-to-host communications, and a high availability sparing for PCIe resources.

The I/O gateway is a device that enables PCI Express resources to be provisioned, moved, managed, or consolidated. Furthermore, the Aprius I/O gateway virtualizes all of the above into one pool, whenever the need arises to do so. In doing so, the Aprius I/O gateway helps businesses and high-end computing customers to achieve the highest performance possible from their servers. Furthermore, higher performance and more traffic flow also provides for lower costs and higher profits for the companies with Aprius products.

Aprius has a line of products that is solely dedicated to a higher I/O gateway performance. Aprius’ technology is also good for businesses because it is scaleable and resilient, as well as having a high port count system architecture, which can be used to interface a high volume of servers serving both industrial and high computing networks.

Aprius also offers applications that are designed to help I/O providers to run their I/O gateways more smoothly and efficiently. The way this software works is by I/O virtualization, server expansion, computational acceleration, high performance storage, and host-to-host communication.

Aprius investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners and NEA, which invested $11 million in series A funding in 2007, and the two above mentioned vc firms also pitched in with Menlo Ventures in $20 million in series B funding.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a vc firm that is a global leader in investing in early stage companies and Lightspeed has more than $2 billion under its management. Lightspeed Venture Partners is based in Silicon Valley, California and has offices in Israel, China, and India. Some other companies in Lightspeed’s bill include 99Bill, Aerohive, Blaze DFM, Blue Nile, CoalTek, and others.

NEA or New Enterprise Associations is a vc firm that is also a leader in venture capital and focuses on helping entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful companies. Founded in 1978, NEA invests in all stages of a company’s life and has over $8.5 billion under its management. Some other companies in NEA’s portfolio include Anicus, Xen Source, 3Com, Alteon, Argon Networks, and others.

Menlo Ventures is a vc firm that is based in Menlo Park, California and is dedicated to providing long term capital and management support to early stage companies and was founded in 1976. Menlo Ventures has over $4 billion under its management and has a team of partners with deep experience in the tech industry. Some other companies in Menlo’s portfolio include 3Par, Acme Packet, CellFire, UUNET Technologies, InfoSeek, Mobitv, and others.

The founders of Aprius are Jean-Marc Verdiell, who still works at the company as its CTO; Marc Epitaux, who still works at Aprius as the company’s Vice President of Components and Engineering; and Peter Kirkpatrick, who also serves the company as the Chief Architect.

Dr. Verdiell has experience in management, product development, and research in the optoelectronics industry that spans over 19 years and has held key management positions in prominent companies, such as AT&T Bell Laboratories, SDL, and Intel. Dr. Verdiell also directed the Optical Digital Group in October of 2001, where he was in charge of developing Intel’s optical technology strategy. Dr. Verdiell graduated from the University of Paris, where he received a doctorate in optoelectronics.
Marc Epitaux has worked in the development engineering and team management department for over 13 years and was an early contributer at LightLogic, where he developed 10 GB/s optical modules and manufacturing automation technology. Mr. Epitaux graduated from EPFL, Switzerland in 1992 with an MS in Micro Engineering.

Mr. Kirkpatrick is also an asset to the company, because of his incredible experience in the development of high speed communication systems. Mr. Kirkpatrick also worked at Intel, where he worked on path finding in short reach optical interconnects. In 1999, he graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, where he received an MSEE in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering.

Aprius does not yet have any noteworthy competitors to speak of.

For more information about Aprius, click here.

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