Seattle data startup Qumulo is now a unicorn

[SAN FRANCISCO] Seattle has minted another unicorn: Qumulo, the data-management service, said extra business created by the coronavirus pandemic helped it raise an additional US$125 million in funding, bringing the company to a US$1.2 billion valuation.

The new round, led by BlackRock, will help the company capitalise on a wave of interest in the type of service it provides, which moves huge amounts of data to remote cloud-based servers and manages it once there.

The pandemic is nudging more companies toward embracing cloud services as they try to minimise the number of visits information-technology employees need to make to servers at offices or data centres, said Qumulo chief executive officer Bill Richter. It is also vastly increasing the amount of data that some companies need to handle. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which tracks Covid-19 cases in detail around the country, is one customer that stepped up its use of Qumulo's services, the company said.

"When people talk about big data, it's really, for us, small data," Mr Richter said.

Seattle, home to computing giant Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. with its leading cloud computing business AWS, has become known as a hub for enterprise-focused companies. Last year, the greater Seattle area took in US$3.7 billion in venture dollars, according to research firm PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association trade group.

Qumulo last raised US$93 million in 2018, in a round also led by BlackRock, and has raised a total of US$350 million to date. Other backers include Highland Capital Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Kleiner Perkins.

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