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Permabit Chews On $12M

Permabit Inc., after being dumped by its OEM, Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) (NYSE: STK), a few months ago, rebounded today by announcing a $12 million funding round to help it try to pick up the pieces.

Permabit CEO Tom Cook says the Cambridge, Mass., startup closed a third funding round led by previous investor Baker Capital Corp.
to bring its total funding to $32 million. The funding round was one of Cooks top priorities when he replaced Randy Seidl as CEO of the content addressed storage (CAS) vendor in April (see Permabit Cooks Up New CEO).

“This gives us a tremendous push,” Cook says. “It should give us significant growth.”

Cook says he will expand the 30-person company’s staff, most notably adding sales, business development, and marketing VPs. Cook also says Permabit added five customers over June and July, bringing its total to around 20.

Permabit still faces a challenging future, even with the funding. Cook says partnerships are an important part of Permabit’s strategy, but it lost its biggest partner when StorageTek pulled out of its OEM deal in June (see StorageTek Rolls Its Own CAS, Permabit, NorthSeas Form Archive Pact, and Permabit, QStar Hook Up for DR). Permabit expected its OEM deal announced in January to make it a major player in the CAS space, but StorageTek unveiled its own competing product five months later and sent Permabit packing (see StorageTek Taps Permabit's CAS Act and StorageTek & Permabit Mingling).

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