Arkin Net comes out of stealth mode with $7M funding led by Nexus Venture Partners
Arkin Net, the startup which is building the industry’s first multi-vendor SDN operations platform to change how enterprises operate their software-defined datacenters, is coming out of stealth mode. Today, it has announced $7 million in funding, led by Nexus Venture Partners. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) market is projected to be $8B by 2018. The funding round was led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from industry veterans including, B.V. Jagadeesh (Ex-CEO NetScaler and Nutanix Investor), Alan Cohen (Chief Commercial Officer of Illumio, Ex-VP Nicira) and Semil Shahof Haystack Fund.
With Google-like ease-of-use, Arkin Net promises organizations an entirely new way to search, view and share operational data without spending significant time or money on retraining their staff. The company was co-founded by IITians Shiv Agarwal, Mukul Gupta, Rohit Toshniwal and Abhijit Sharma who have been a part of VMWare, Mvrosoft and Amberpoint(acquired by Oracle) previously.
A big challenge
As organizations adopt a software-defined datacenter strategy, they are virtualizing their networks.The operational visibility required to successfully maintain these new software-defined networks is non-existent; the transition from initial deployment to day-to day operations is the biggest challenge. IT departments quickly realize that they are missing the right solution and will need to spend vast amounts of money on retooling and retraining. The overall approach to network operations is stuck in the old command prompt world; it’s time for a new way – a better, smarter, faster way.
Shiv Agarwal, CEO and Co-Founder of Arkin Net said,
At Arkin Net we live by one guiding principle - make software-defined datacenter operations simple and effortless, regardless of the vendor or strategy a customer has chosen. With networking evolving and network operations stuck in the past, a truly transformational approach is needed. And to realize this, we have assembled a diverse, highly skilled team of datacenter, networking, big data and consumer design experts. The excitement is real and the momentum we are seeing from our initial customers validates our approach and belief.
Arkin Net is testing its solution with several large enterprise customers, and is refining its platform to prepare for a product launch.
The consumer approach to an enterprise problem
Google changed the way you look for information, Twitter changed the way you get your news alerts and Pinterest changed how you share - why not apply these simple consumer principles to enterprise software? With a consumer approach, the Arkin Net platform claims that it'll enable enterprises to analyze, visualize and share operational data as easily as a Google search. This fresh approach brings unprecedented visibility across the physical and virtual layers, breaking the traditional IT silos.
Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners said,
Software-defined networks are core to the evolution of software-defined datacenters (SDDC). Arkin Net's data driven approach subsumes the inherent complexities and brings in consumer grade simplicity to SDDC operations.
Nexus Venture Partners has recently invested $2.6 million in the big data powered marketing SaaS company, Blueshift.