Penguin Computing Gets $9 Million in Venture Funding

Published: April 3, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Linux systems maker Penguin Computing, which is trying to carve out a niche for itself in the relatively fast-growing supercomputer clustering market, has secured $9 million in its second round of venture capital funding.

Penguin Computing has been targeting the Linux Beowulf server clustering market for parallel supercomputing workloads since it acquired Scyld Software, which offered commercial versions of the open source Beowulf extensions to Linux, in June 2003. The most recent version of this software, called ClusterWare, runs on a Red Hat Linux distribution rather than a proprietary Linux implementation, making the company's products more appealing because Red Hat is the volume leader in the commercial Linux space.

The company secured its first round of venture capital, $10 million, in November 2005 from a group of investors lead by London Merchant Securities Capital (giving the firm a seat on Penguin's board) and including Convergence Partners, Weber Capital Management, Sunrise Venture Capital; existing investors in Penguin also kicked in to this initial funding round. With the second round of funding, vSpring Capital is leading off in raising the $9 million in cash, with San Francisco Equity Partners, Weber Capital, and Convergence Partners all investing as well. vSpring will also get a seat on the board of directors at Penguin Computing after having lead this round of funding.

Enrico Pesatori, Penguin Computing's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement that the company will use the funds to invest in software development and in bolstering its professional services organization.

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Penguin Computing Gets $10 Million in Venture Dough

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