VC Accel Partners has led a $12m in development software startup ClusterHQ, its second investment in the increasingly popular container space in just over two months.
Although it might make many people’s eyes glaze over, container tech has rapidly risen in popularity. The technology effectively allows for a more efficient partitioning of certain technical services. It has been used by data-centers and providers to run different application types simultaneously.
Growth of containers
Accel in December led a $5m round in Weaveworks, another UK startup exploring the container space. Docker’s container platform, which Weaveworks uses, went from under three million downloads in June 2014 to over one-hundred million by January 2015.
Commenting on the investment, partner at Accel Partners Kevin Comolli said:
“Having closely followed the evolving needs of enterprise IT organisations, we believe that enterprise adoption of container technology will be greatly accelerated when containerisation offers the same data management and protection solutions that enterprise IT organisations have come to expect from virtualisation.”
ClusterHQ will use the funds to expand its teams both in the UK and in the US, with new CEO Mark Davis expanding the business’ San Francisco Bay Area headquarters to complement the company’s UK-based development team.
The investment included Canaan Partners and ClusterHQ’s existing investors. The funding represents the largest Series A investment in the container ecosystem to date.