InovaWave Clears Fresh Funding

Startup InovaWave has picked up $7.2 million in Series B funding and a new CEO as it rolls out its plan to ride the VMware wave. (See InovaWave Secures $7.2M and InovaWave.)

The round, which was led by Matrix Partners and included existing investor Silverton Partners, brings InovaWave's total funding to just over $9 million. (See InovaWave Secures $2M.) Former company president and Tivoli exec Chris Ostertag has also taken over the InovaWave reins from founder Terry Ferose, who now becomes the startup's vice president of strategy and operations.

The CEO changeover was a "mutual" decision between the two execs, according to Ostertag, who says Ferose was keen to re-direct his energies toward technology: "It lets him focus on where his interests lie."

InovaWave is also planning to extend its flagship DXTreme software, which it touts as a way for firms to boost the number of virtual machines (VMs) running on a physical server. InovaWave can increase the number of VMs from four to eight on a typical server, according to Ostertag.

VMs are essentially pieces of software that let users run separate applications or even operating systems on the same piece of hardware. DXtreme creates an individual I/O channel for each VM. Each channel transfers data directly to a virtual server. This process reduces the amount of memory needed by each virtual machine, enabling users to deploy more VMs on a single piece of hardware.