Citrix Systems has acquired venture capital backed Cloud.com, that is into software infrastructure platforms for cloud providers in a deal worth more than $200 million. Cloud.com helps companies deploy and manage simple, cost-effective cloud services. It was funded by Redpoint Ventures, Nexus Capital and Index Ventures. Nexus is the co-lead investor with Redpoint in Cloud.com.
The deal value is between $200 million to $250 million, VCCircle has learnt. The exit comes after two years of initial funding. Cloud.com was founded in 2008 by a group of infrastructure and virtualization veterans. It has a development centre in Hyderabad and counts homegrown telecommunications company Tata Communications as its major client. It also boasts of clients with demanding infrastructure needs like Zynga, IDC Frontier, edumunds.com and Nokia Research center among others.
Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service. A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional hosting. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic -- a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and Internet access).
The transition from the PC Era to the Cloud Era is expected to fuel a massive build out in cloud infrastructure, creating a new market projected to exceed $11 billion by the end of 2013 according to industry analysts. Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing.This is not the first time that Nexus Venture Partners has backed a company operating in the cloud infrastructure space. It has earlier invested in Gluster and Aryaka Networks- both offering cloud based computing solution. This is the third exit for the technology focused venture capital firm in the last twelve months. Its portfolio company OLX, a classifieds website was acquired by Napsters late last year while Open source Web-conferencing company Dimdim was acquired by Salesforce.com early this year. Some more exits are expected in the next few months, the company spokesperson added.
