Cloud computing management software provider RightScale has scored $13 million in second round venture funding. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by returning investor Benchmark Capital, which led a $4.5 million round in April. Index Ventures partner Danny Rimer has also joined the RightScale’s board of directors. The funding is another proof point that venture firms are still investing in cloud computing plays despite the downturn. RightScale, as well as its competitor Elastra, which raised money in August, are fueled up for the downturn. Let’s see if they can get anywhere, especially as the larger providers such as IBM start moving in with their own cloud management and provisioning services.
Congrats to the RightScale guys. They are an excellent team. In connection to the investment in RightScale, I wrote a post on my blog today entitled “How the Recession Saved Cloud Computing” (http://gevaperry.typepad.com/main/2008/12/how-the-recession-saved-cloud-computing.html) . The gist of it is that if it weren’t for the recession we would have faced a cloud VC investment bubble, but due to it we’re going to see much more prudent investment in a leading few, sparing us the extreme pendulum swings.
Congrats to them, but with hosting becoming cheaper and cheaper I can’t help but be skeptic on the whole cloud computing business and it´s commercial possibilities.
No bubble ends well, just look at the recent one in web video.
How much money was sunk in youtube clones?
@Shadowlayer:
I think Bill Gates once said something like that about personal computers. You’ve obviously never created/owned/managed an application that made use of cloud computing.