An enterprise startup called Tintri just raised a hefty $75 million round of venture investment on its way to an IPO, perhaps next year.
The company makes what it calls "smart hybrid-flash storage." That means it combines flash storage the — same kind of storage used in a smartphone or thumbdrive — with the classic computer hard drives.
The upshot is that enterprises can pack more software at less cost onto a Tintri storage device than they can with a traditional storage disk, the company says. This particular company is playing in a particular niche, too, a part of the market called virtual desktops. That's when the desktop operating system (typically Windows) along with all the desktop apps are sent to a laptop over the cloud. Nothing is installed on the PC.
This is becoming an increasingly common way for companies to supply software for employees. In fact Google is pushing this concept hard with its Chromebox, Chromebooks and a new partnership with VMware.
The round was led by Insight Venture Partners, who was joined by Lightspeed Venture, Menlo Ventures and NEA, the company says.
This investment brings the company's total funds raised to $135 million, according to its CrunchBase profile. It's also now valued at $600 million.
Tintri CEO Ken Klein thinks that will be enough to take the company public in 2015.
"This should give us the money we need before we IPO next year. We didn't raise more because frankly we didn't need more funding now," he told Silicon Valley Business Journal's Cromwell Schubarth in an interview.
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