Seagate dumps $40M into Flash-storage startup Virident
Summary
Today, hard drive giant Seagate announced it’s investing a huge $40 million chunk of change in Virident, a startup focused on Flash storage. With the investment, Seagate will buy itself a board seat as well as the advantages of a “strategic partnership” with the younger company. A rep for the companies said via email that as of the deal’s announcement, Seagate will immediately start selling a complete line of Flash-based technologies to its other partners (including OEMs), and Virident will be using Seagate’s ample marketing and distribution channels. “This partnership validates Virident’s vision of pervasive flash in the performance tier and accelerates our shared vision by bringing next-generation SCM solutions to the enterprise and web datacenters worldwide.” said Virident CEO Mike Gustafson in a statement on the news. Seagate’s heavy investment in Flash storage was also made evident in last year’s acquisition of LaCie (a French storage-focused company) and its investment in DensBits, an Israeli company that makes “Memory Modem, a revolutionary technology created to address the ever-increasing need for low-cost, high-performance NAND Flash-based storage systems.” Virident, based in Milpitas, Calif., was founded in 2006.