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Carbonite Announces C Round Financing
BOSTON — September 8, 2008 — Carbonite, Inc., a leading provider of
online backup services for consumers and small businesses, announced
that it has closed its C round financing. The round was led by
Performance Equity of Stamford, Conn., with participation of all of
Carbonite's existing institutional investors, including Menlo Ventures,
3i, and Common Angels Fund. The round provides Carbonite with
approximately $20 million of new capital, bringing the total raised by
the Boston-based company to approximately $47 million. While the
company does not disclose specific terms, the valuation of the C round
is a significant step up from prior rounds.
David Friend,
Carbonite CEO, said the new cash would be used to expand the company's
marketing and partnership programs. Carbonite has been advertising
aggressively on radio talk shows such as Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh,
Bill O'Reilly, and many others. In addition, Carbonite has recently
begun shipping Carbonite Online Backup as a pre-installed application on
all Packard Bell computers in Europe and on Lenovo's IdeaPad computers
around the world. Carbonite reports it has had 28 consecutive months of
double-digit month-over-month revenue growth.
Friend said:
"Simple, affordable online backup is hot. We continue to stress
simplicity, reliability, and value. Our advertising helps us get the
word out, and hundreds of thousands of people now pay $50 a year to
subscribe. According to third-party analysts, we are No. 1 in market
share. Our C round, led by Performance Equity, will allow us to continue
to ramp up our marketing efforts around the world. This should be our
last financing before an IPO."
Charles Froland, CEO of
Performance Equity, said: "Carbonite is one of those rare companies that
has an easy-to-understand product, early leadership in a potentially
huge market, a business model that is proven and already working nicely,
excellent technology, and a seasoned management team. We buy their
vision that most PCs will eventually be backed up online. So we are
delighted to have an opportunity to invest. The investment that we and
their other institutional investors have made should give the company
the fire power to stay ahead of competitors as the market evolves."
About Carbonite
Carbonite
launched its Online Backup service in May 2006. Carbonite's
industry-first offer of unlimited backup space for a flat low price
revolutionized the market for consumer and small business backup
services. So far, the company has backed up more than 4 billion files,
has restored more than 300 million lost files for its customers and has a
large data center where capacity is measured in petabytes. There are
Carbonite users in more than 110 countries.
Carbonite
believes that computer users should not have to think about backup. The
company's mission is to provide an affordable, reliable, secure and
easy-to-use solution for the mainstream computer user. Carbonite is
available to consumers and small businesses through numerous channels,
including its corporate Web site, major US retailers and international
distributors. For more information, please visit www.carbonite.co.uk.
About Performance Equity
Performance
Equity Management is a large and experienced private equity investor
with a longstanding history of managing institutional funds.
Performance
Equity's dedication to the private equity asset class has enabled the
organization to develop a strong track record and a reputation as an
industry leader focused on investing in top performing companies over a
broad scope of sectors, including a wide variety of later stage venture
backed companies.
