SAN JOSE – August 19, 2009 – Wanova, Inc. has exited stealth mode and launched a new era in desktop virtualization with $13 million in A-round funding from Greylock Partners, Carmel Ventures, and Opus Capital. Founded by experienced entrepreneurs, the company has launched an entirely new architecture called Distributed Desktop Virtualization (DDV), which addresses the need for enterprises to improve the management, support and protection of distributed endpoints. [See related news release at www.wanova.com/new-architecture]
Industry analysts have estimated that desktop virtualization is a multi-billion dollar market. Gartner forecasts that licenses for hosted virtual desktops, which numbered 300,000 in 2008, have the potential to grow to 50M by 2013. One of the obstacles to broad adoption is network latency issues. Further, traditional desktop virtualization technologies have not addressed the problem posed by remote workers: Hosted virtual desktops still lack an acceptable end-user experience over the WAN and adequate offline support. Emerging client-hosted solutions avoid performance and offline issues, but lack sufficient centralization capabilities and can increase management complexity.
Wanova’s new architecture is designed specifically to address the endpoint management challenges presented by distributed remote and mobile workers. The Wanova DDV solution centralizes the entire desktop contents in the data center for management and protection purposes while distributing the execution of desktop workloads to the endpoints for superior user experience.
“IT managers face significant challenges to increase control, ensure compliance and reduce the operational costs of their desktop infrastructure. At the same time, they are tasked with optimizing the end-user experience,” said Ilan Kessler, CEO and co-founder of Wanova. “Wanova redefines distributed desktop management, so IT has the control they need, and end-users have the productivity they want.”
The founders of Wanova – Kessler and CTO, Dr. Issy Ben-Shaul – also co-founded Actona, which was acquired by Cisco and became the foundation for Cisco’s Application Delivery Business Unit. Prior to founding Actona, Kessler was vice president and general manager for Qualcomm Israel and a research staff member at IBM in New York.
Ben-Shaul was the CTO of the Application Delivery Business Unit at Cisco and led its technology and vision. Prior to Actona, he was a tenured faculty member at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, where he worked on wide area distributed systems.
Wanova is headquartered in San Jose, California with a development center in Netanya, Israel. The company's solutions are currently in field testing with customers.
About Greylock Partners
Founded in 1965, Greylock Partners is one of the world's leading venture capital firms. Over the past 44 years, Greylock has funded and helped build several hundred successful companies. The Greylock approach uniquely puts the entrepreneur first, with Greylock working as an "invited guest" in a highly supportive yet consultative way to help entrepreneurs build market-leading companies. Companies Greylock has funded include Ascend Communications, CheckFree, Constant Contact, Continental Cable, Decru, Data Domain, Digg, DoubleClick, Facebook, Internet Security Systems, Ikanos, Legato, Linked In, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Openwave, Red Hat, RightNow Technologies, Success Factors, Tellabs, Trilogy and Wily Technology. Greylock's offices are located in Silicon Valley, the Boston area, Israel and India. For more information, please visit www.greylock.com.
About Carmel Ventures
With over $600 million currently under management, several successful exits, and a growing portfolio of promising start-ups, Carmel is among Israel’s top-tier venture capital funds. Carmel’s investments are focused primarily on early-stage companies in the fields of software, communications, Internet, media, semiconductors, and consumer electronics. Founded in 2000 by pioneers and leaders of the Israeli high tech industry, Carmel provides significant capital and active, hands-on support through the growth cycle of its portfolio companies and is recognized as a true company-building fund in Israel. Carmel, headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, enjoys a worldwide network of industry, strategic and investment resources.
Carmel is an affiliate of the Viola Partners Group, a leading innovative private equity investment group with over $1.8 billion under management focused on technology-based investment opportunities in Israel. For more information, please visit www.carmelventures.com.
About Opus Capital
Opus Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm with more than $1 billion of committed capital under management, investing in committed, high integrity entrepreneurs building market-leading technology companies. The team has participated in the successful outcomes of more than 80 companies (including 50 IPOs) in the U.S. and in Israel including Adaptec, AirGate PCS, BlueNile, Brocade, Ciena, DoubleClick, Electronics for Imaging, FedEx, Genesys, Harmonic, Informatica, Kidaro and Vantive. Opus Capital is headquartered on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. For more information, visit www.opuscapital.com.
About Wanova
Wanova, Inc. provides Distributed Desktop Virtualization solutions that transform how companies manage, support and protect their desktops and laptops. Wanova’s Distributed Desktop Virtualization centralizes control of the desktop infrastructure while optimizing the user experience and providing full support for offline use. Wanova’s unique architecture enables companies to reduce costs while dramatically improving IT operations and users’ productivity. Wanova is privately held and headquartered in San Jose, CA with a development center in Netanya, Israel. For more information, please visit www.wanova.com.
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