I've been blogging about the concept of a Little Green Server for the data center, and posted in Oct 2009 about Smooth-Stone. Luckily thanks to some data center insiders I met the Smooth-Stone executive team and had the pleasure of being on a plane flight from SJC to SEA with CEO Barry Evans and posted again in Apr 2010.
After months and months of work the Smooth-Stone team announced their VC funding of $48,000,000 and now I can write a blog entry that Smooth Stone is funded.
Smooth-Stone Secures $48 Million to Complete Development of Semiconductors for Servers, Data Centers
Unique Syndicate of Chip Industry Leaders and Venture Capital Firms Back Smooth-Stone, Help Company Take Data Center Performance to New Heights with Cell Phone-like Power Consumption
Austin, TX, August 16, 2010 – Smooth-Stone today announced it is raising $48 million from a unique syndicate of investors comprising industry leading venture capital firms and semiconductor innovators. The capital will be applied directly to the final development and market delivery of high performance, low power chips that will change the server market and the makeup of data centers. Smooth-Stone funding partners include ARM, Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), Battery Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, Highland Capital Partners and Texas Instruments Inc.
“This kind of investment, the amount, and the strength of this syndicate is a strong endorsement
for the innovation we are bringing to market,” said Smooth-Stone CEO Barry Evans. “We look
forward to taking advantage of the insights and know-how of these industry-leading investors.”
Others talk about Power as an issue for servers and Smooth-Stone will attempt to be disruptive.
“This kind of investment, the amount, and the strength of this syndicate is a strong endorsement
for the innovation we are bringing to market,” said Smooth-Stone CEO Barry Evans. “We look
forward to taking advantage of the insights and know-how of these industry-leading investors.”Power consumption matters more than ever. Smooth-Stone will bring the low-power virtues of mobile phone technology to servers and data centers. Its semiconductors and software will provide a solution for companies where energy consumption by servers has become a constraining and expensive issue by increasing the density of computer resources while significantly conserving energy, cooling and space in the data center. Smooth-Stone customers will have new, unseen options as they plan their future server deployments.
“Our goal is to completely remove power consumption as an issue for the data center. Imagine
that change for companies with a large presence on the Internet,” added Evans. “They all deal
with the reality that as the mass of information grows daily, so does their power consumption.
Every day these companies are thinking about managing their data center sprawl. We want to
make sure that space and power are not constraining their potential.”“The necessity of finding more energy efficient server solutions for data centers has created an
enormous and truly revolutionary opportunity for the industry,” said Battery Ventures General
Partner, Ken Lawler. “As a firm, we recognized from the beginning that Smooth-Stone had the
innovative technology, the customer value proposition and the engineering and management
capability to disrupt the web server landscape. Working with management, we’ve put together
a unique investment structure and syndicate of both strategic and traditional venture capital
investors that gives the company what it needs to succeed in this highly competitive market.
Smooth-Stone has a very bright future and we’re thrilled to be part of this investment.”
The Little Green Server is now funded and has market attention.
ARM backs server chip start-up
ZDNet UK - David Meyer - 52 minutes ago
A US start-up chipmaker called Smooth-Stone has raised tens of millions of dollars to develop and sell ...
ARM server chip startup gets big backers
Register - Timothy Prickett Morgan - 1 hour ago
There are a number of ways to create a power-efficient server chip for hyperscale applications like ...
Smooth-Stone Secures $48 Million to Complete Development of Semiconductors for ...
MarketWatch (press release) - 4 hours ago
AUSTIN, Texas, Aug 16, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Smooth-Stone today announced it is raising $48 million from a unique syndicate of investors comprising ...
Chip startup seeks to lower electric bills in data centers
Computerworld - Dan Nystedt - 4 hours ago
IDG News Service - A new startup funded by major chip makers and investment firms is taking aim at electricity bills, the biggest cost in ...
Investors help Smooth-Stone chip away at Intel
San Francisco Chronicle - Ashlee Vance - 9 hours ago
A group of investors, including companies from the United States, Europe and the United Arab Emirates, has formed in a bid to disrupt one of Santa Clara ...
Green chip start-up gets $48 million in funding
CNET - Brooke Crothers - 10 hours ago
Silicon start-up Smooth-Stone has received $48 million from a syndicate of investors including ARM, Texas Instruments, and Highland ...
Unusual Chip Start-Up Raises $48 Million From Investors
Wall Street Journal - Don Clark - 15 hours ago
AUSTIN, Texas—Smooth-Stone, a start-up with an unusual plan to target the market for chips used in server systems, said it had raised $48 ...
Smooth Stone to Take ARM Energy Savings to Data Centers
Greentech Media (blog) - 19 minutes ago
Can a start-up begin to edge out Intel in servers? Historically, it won't be easy. Smooth-Stone, which came out of stealth mode for $48 million dollars from ...
US start-up seeks investors for mobile phone chip for server and data centers
DatacenterDynamics - 31 minutes ago
US start-up Smooth-Stone said it wants to hit up venture capital firms and semiconductor innovators for $48 million for the final development and market ...
Smooth-Stone Gets $48 Million Funding for ARM Server Chips
Softpedia - Sebastian Pop - 56 minutes ago
Though ARM chips have mostly stuck to mobile handsets and small electronics so far, it seems like they might soon make it into none other than the server ...
Smooth-Stone Gets $48M For Low-Power Data Centers
Texas Tech Pulse (blog) - 1 hour ago
Austin-based Smooth-Stone, a developer of semiconductors targeted at the data center and server market, announced today that it has raised $48M in a funding ...
Intel rival Smooth-Stone raises $48M
Bizjournals.com - 1 hour ago
Smooth-Stone Inc. said on Monday it has received a $48 million Series A round of funding. Austin, Texas-based Smooth-Stone, a developer low-power server ...
Intel's Biggest Rival: ARM Chips in Servers and Smartphones
Fast Company - Kit Eaton - 1 hour ago
Forget Intel versus AMD--that was a chip-maker battle of yesteryear, played out inside your desktop PC. Now the real CPU war is happening ...
Smooth-Stone, an Austin Technology Incubator Company, Lands $48 Million ...
PR Web (press release) - 2 hours ago
The Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), a not-for-profit arm of The University of Texas at Austin, congratulates member company Smooth-Stone on its $48 ...
Smooth-Stone ARM server chips get $48m funding to take on Intel
SlashGear (blog) - 2 hours ago
By Satsuki Then on Monday, Aug 16th 2010 No Comments While ARM processors are generally to be found in ultraportable devices like smartphones, a significant ...
Intel's Franchises Might Be Disrupted by a Group of Investors
LB News - Jamie Harris - 2 hours ago
The Santa Clara chipmaker, Intel's franchises might be disrupted by a group of investors from different parts of the world. This group of investors actually ...
Mass. VC firms lead $48M data center funding
Mass High Tech - Galen Moore - 2 hours ago
Three Massachusetts venture capital firms have syndicated to co-lead a $48 million equity investment in Smooth-Stone Inc., a young, Austin, ...
Chip Makers, Investors Gang Up On Intel, Invest $48M In CPU Startup
ChannelWeb - Joseph F. Kovar - 3 hours ago
A group of chip manufacturers and investors are investing a total of $48 million in chip startup ...
Smooth-Stone wants to beat up Intel in the server chip market
Tech Eye - Andrea Petrou - 6 hours ago
A chip startup hopes to dent Intel's market share in servers by recruiting investors to help it build ARM based chips. Companies from America, Europe and ...
ARM and partners invest in server chip start-up
HEXUS - Scott Bicheno - 7 hours ago
Smooth-Stone is a start-up founded in January 2008 with lofty ambitions: to take on Intel where it's strongest - servers. Intel pretty much owns this market ...
Tiny ARM-backed Firm Aims To Beat Intel In Servers
ITProPortal - Desire Athow - 7 hours ago
A little known company, Smooth-stone, is looking to outclass semiconductor giant in the server market by introducing ARM-based microprocessors that can ...
Smooth-Stone to put ARM CPUs into servers
ElectronicsWeekly.com - David Manners - 8 hours ago
ATIC, the Abu Dhabi investment company backing Globalfoundries, has got together with Texas Instruments, ARM and venture capitalists Highland Capital ...
Another microchip investment from Abu Dhabi
National (blog) - Tom Gara - 8 hours ago
Can Samson slay Goliath? Taking its cue from the biblical tale of the underdog defeating the giant with a sling of a well-aimed rock, Smooth-Stone, ...
ARM, ATIC, TI invest $48M in server chip startup
EETimes.com - Mark LaPedus - 9 hours ago
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Startup Smooth-Stone Inc. has raised $48 million from a syndicate of investors, including ARM, Advanced Technology Investment Co. ...
Chip startup Smooth-Stone raises $48M in backing
Austin American-Statesman - James Brosher - 11 hours ago
Smooth-Stone CEO Barry Evans was involved in Intel's development of the low-power Xscale family of processors — the same Intel that looms as one of ...
An atom bomb aimed at Intel: Smooth-Stone raises $48M for low-power ARM server ...
VentureBeat - Dean Takahashi - 13 hours ago
Hoping to outdo Intel in the server chip market, Smooth-Stone has raised $48 million to complete development of its ARM-based server chips which consume ...
Smooth-Stone Gets $48M for ARM Servers
GigaOm (blog) - Stacey Higginbotham - 15 hours ago
Smooth-Stone, an Austin, Texas-based company building servers using the chips found inside cell ...
