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(Zaragoza, Spain) Zentyal, developer of the Zentyal Linux small business server, announced today that it has closed a series A venture capital funding of over $1 million USD by Open Ocean Capital, leading investor in community and open source business. The funding will be used to support Zentyal’s expansion in the small and medium business (SMB) server market that is estimated to reach 17.4 million units by the year 2017.
“Zentyal is a fast-growing server solution that combines cloud-based services to make network management easy and secure for SMBs. In just three years we have become the reference in Linux small business servers, and now, with over 30,000 monthly downloads and at break-even, we consider this is the right moment to get venture capital to disrupt definitely the market. We believe Open Ocean Capital is the best investor for us, as they can bring both the funding and the best advice to help us challenge the current market leaders” said Ignacio Correas, CEO of Zentyal.
“We are excited to become shareholders in Zentyal, as the company aims to disrupt the multibillion dollar business for small- and medium sized business servers” said Tom Henriksson, Open Ocean Partner. “Zentyal perfectly fits Open Ocean Fund Three’s investment focus, developing a rapidly scalable business on the basis of a vibrant open-source community and -product.”
Simultaneously Zentyal has also appointed new members to the Board of Directors: Tom Henriksson, Partner at Open Ocean and former Head of Corporate Business Development at Nokia, has joined the board alongside with Jorge Mata, Founder and President of Berg Networks and Founder of MyAlert.
About Zentyal
Zentyal, the Linux Small Business Server, offers small and medium businesses an enterprise-level, affordable and easy-to-use network infrastructure. By using Zentyal server and its cloud-based services, SMBs are able to improve the reliability and security of their computer network and to reduce their IT investments and operational costs.
Zentyal server development was started in early 2004 and currently it is the open source alternative to Windows Small Business Server. Zentyal server is widely used in the small and medium businesses regardless of sector, industry or location as well as in the public administrations or in the education sector.
About Open Ocean Capital
Open Ocean is a leading early-stage venture capital company, with a particular emphasis on European start-ups deploying user community or open source business models.
Open Ocean was the first major owner in MySQL AB, which was later sold to Sun Microsystems for $1 billion in 2008. Above and beyond many venture capital firms, Open Ocean is also able to leverage its direct experience as founders of MySQL to provide hands-on support to the management of companies receiving Open Ocean’s funding.
Open Ocean is led by partners Patrik Backman, Ralf Wahlsten and Tom Henriksson and by “community and open source wizard” Michael “Monty” Widenius, the original developer of the MySQL database and co-founder of the company MySQL AB.
More about Open Ocean Capital: www.openoceancapital.com