Gnodal Secures Funding From YFM Group to Scaleup Development of Data Centre Technology
Bristol-based Gnodal, which is developing a revolutionary technology for use in high performance data centres, has secured finance from the YFM Group managed South West Ventures Fund as part of a £1.1 million funding round. Adrian Beecroft and NESTA were co-investors in the round and a second closing saw the YFM Group managed Finance South West Growth Fund also investing in the company.
Gnodal, which is located in the SETSquared business incubator at Bristol University, has developed technology that gives an order of magnitude improvement in data centre performance and power efficiency.
With rapidly increasing volumes of information, data centres are growing in size and power consumption. Traditional technologies have become inefficient as data centres have increased in size.
At present, these problems principally affect the very largest users of high performance computing facilities, but are increasingly experienced in enterprise and Internet data centres. With the advent of virtualisation, web 2.0 and sophisticated corporate applications, this is becoming more of an issue.
The Gnodal solution, offering a unique combination of high performance, low cost and low power, enables the construction of even larger scale data centres and higher performance computing systems. The market research company Dell ‘Oro predicts that in 2011 Gnodal’s addressable market will be worth $4.8 billion.
Fred Homewood, CEO of Gnodal, said: “Our products will offer performance levels significantly exceeding those found today in large data centres. We will be offering a range of products to satisfy the smallest systems to the largest server clusters and storage arrays.
Julian Dennard, Senior Investment Manager at YFM Group, said: "Gnodal has developed an innovative solution for a high growth market. Fred Homewood has put together a highly qualified and experienced team and we look forward to working with them."
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NOTES TO EDITORS
YFM Group - South West Ventures Fund
The YFM Group managed South West Ventures Fund is a £21m fund that has been set up to provide venture capital to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) based in the South West of England. Initial investment can be up to £330,000 with an ability to invest a further £330,000 after six months. In certain circumstances, alongside other new investors, the Fund can follow on its investments to provide a total of £2.5 million to one company. To date the fund has invested £9.5m in 29 companies.
YFM Group – is the UK’s most active investor in the small and medium enterprise marketplace. YFM Group manages in excess of £300 million of funds with investment sizes ranging from £50,000 to £5 million. Principal offices are located in Leeds, Manchester, London and Bristol with over 45 investment professionals being employed across the UK.
South West Ventures Fund is managed by YFM Venture Finance Limited part of the YFM Group. YFM Venture Finance Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
For further information about YFM Group and South West Ventures Fund, please telephone 0117 906 3410, log on to www.southwestventuresfund.co.uk or email info@southwestventuresfund.co.uk
Media enquiries:
To arrange an interview with South West Ventures Fund, please contact Matt Anderson or Hannah Roberts at Montage Communications on 0845 644 5404 / 07872 399 767 or email hannah@montagecomms.com
Finance South West
Finance South West, which is part funded by the EU through the Objective Two Programme for the South West, is an £18 million investment fund targeting small and medium sized enterprises in this region with a range of equity, mezzanine and debt capital. Finance South West can provide commercial finance from £10,000 up to £1 million for buying, starting or growing a business in the Objective Two area of the South West. It has now invested over £10 million in the region’s businesses, levering over £20.6 million into the South West economy.
The Finance South West Loan Fund has invested over £4 million in 73 small and medium-sized businesses, levering more than £6.5 million into the South West economy, safeguarding 226 jobs and creating 159. The Finance South West Growth Fund has invested a total of £7 million in 14 companies, levering over £20 million into the economy, creating 46 jobs and safeguarding 259.
The company also offers business planning services and mentoring through a network of qualified professionals and a panel of non-executive directors to help businesses achieve their goals.
Finance Cornwall Fund Managers Limited is an investment company authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority registered in England and Wales, number 05010380, registered address 14 High Cross, Truro, Cornwall, TR1 2AJ.
For further information visit: www.financesouthwest.co.uk
About NESTA
NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts. Our mission is to transform the UK’s capacity for innovation. We do this in three main ways: by working to build a more pervasive culture of innovation in this country; by providing innovators with access to early stage capital; and by driving forward research into innovation, with a view to influencing policy.