Startup Kazeon has scored $21 million in Series B funding, spotlighting momentum in the unstructured data classification and search market. The round, led by Menlo Ventures, included Focus Ventures and all of Kazeon's previous investors.
The three-year-old company, whose total funding is now $44 million, will use the money to expand both partnerships and direct sales in a market that sources say is booming.
Indeed, in addition to Kazeon and a handful of startup rivals, EMC may soon offer a product in this space -- and rumor has it the Hopkinton humongoid will choose to partner rather than start from scratch. (See EMC Intros IIM.)
While an EMC spokeswoman denies any knowledge of such talk, the rumblings in this space are getting louder by the day. Fact is, regulations and legalities have users concerned about being able to tag specific items in the masses of data they're forced to save. (See Lawyers Urge Doc Management.)
Appliances like Kazeon's help by sifting email, Word files, presentations, and other unstructured corporate detritus, enabling storage managers to organize data quickly -- and most importantly, isolate specific items that lawyers and regulators may need.