From Zambeelians to Chameleons

The remains of the reincarnated startup once known as Zambeel (before it tried to rise again as StorAD) has a new name, new home, and new Indian development center (see Zambeelians Reemerge at StorAD and Zambeelian Refugee Heads to Dell).

According to forms filed with the state of California, StorAD changed its name to Agami Systems Inc. in March and operates out of San Jose. It's unclear how many of the old Zambeel bunch are still around but chief architect Bill Earl and the Zambeel VCs remain with Agami. Former Zambeel senior engineer John Galloway, who was among the original StorAD bunch, left last summer.

The biggest name associated with the company is one of its VCs, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers general partner and former Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) CEO Vinod Khosla (see Vinod Khosla and The Top 10 Movers and Shakers in Optical Networking). Khosla sits on Agamis board and apparently recruited Agaim CEO Kumar Sreekanti from Omniva Policy Systems, another Kleiner Perkins investment.

Khosla, known for nurturing startups, helped take Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR) and Corvis Corp. (Nasdaq: CORV) public. He’s had failures, too, including ExciteAtHome and Zambeel. Former Zambeel VCs Apex Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) are the other Agami investors.

For now, Agami remains in deep stealth. Khosla’s office said he was away this summer, and a request to speak with Sreekanti brought an email response from another employee: “We are currently in stealth mode, and hence are sharing information in a very limited fashion at this time." When asked what type of product the company is working on, he responded that "under threat of bodily harm I unfortunately cannot say.” (We hope he was joking.)