Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Arsenal Loads $23M: Page 2 of 3

Investors in the internally led round include Southeast Interactive Technology Funds, which had previously invested in the
company, as well as Task USA and Covestco-Seteura LLC. To date, Durham, N.C.-based Arsenal
has received $42 million in funding. Previous investors include J.P.
Morgan Chase & Co.
, MCNC, and Tyco Capital (formerly CIT).

Oddly, the terrorist attacks in September may have helped jumpstart Arsenal’s sales. The disasters in New York and at the Pentagon caused an unexpected wave of interest in the company’s offsite data storage services, Sinn says.

“It’s a bittersweet way to get business, but after what happened on September 11,
everybody is thinking about backup and DR [disaster recovery], and we’re better
positioned than anyone to provide that."

Steve Duplessie, an analyst with The Enterprise Storage Group Inc., says Arsenal owes its success to a solid strategy. Unlike some of its
competitors in the once overheated SSP space, Arsenal has been able to keep a
very low cost structure -- “They didn’t spend money like drunken sailors on
infrastructure in advance,” he says. He also says Arsenal has focused on second-tier services, like backup,
instead of trying to convince customers to outsource their primary data to a
startup.

“The fact that, at this point in time, they were able to raise 23 million bucks
and have over 400 customers -- we now consider them the proof that the [SSP]
concept was and is sound and that execution matters,” says Duplessie.