SoftBank leads $9.4 million funding round with New York-based cloud startup Packet.
In addition to the capital round, the companies have formed a strategic partnership to bring Packet's bare metal server automation technology and public cloud services to Japan. The partnership will also see Packet establishing its fourth public datacentre in Tokyo, which will offer connectivity to Japan, China, as well as the rest of Asia and Australia.
With existing public cloud datacenters in New York, Silicon Valley and Amsterdam, a strong entrance into Asia's fast-growing cloud market and the Japanese enterprise market is a powerful step forward, said Packet.
Packet's proprietary technology automates physical servers and networks without the use of virtualization or multi-tenancy to provide on-demand compute and connectivity.
With the adoption of container technologies like Docker and Kubernetes, demand for single tenant automated infrastructure is growing exponentially. Since launching in August 2015, Packet said it has seen strong growth among developers, SaaS platforms and large enterprises. The company claims that it has attracted thousands of users and a broad range of use cases, from on-demand private clouds to cloud native platforms built using Docker, Kubernetes, Mesos and more.
Zachary Smith, Packet's CEO
In a market dominated by giants, we feel that a bold partner comfortable with challenging the status quo is exactly what we need to aggressively expand our current momentum in the global cloud marketplace and bring our infrastructure automation expertise to private datacenters.
Eric Gan, Executive Vice President, head of Business Development at SoftBank Corp
Packet's team has built an incredible solution and has already captured the attention of a wide set of partners and clients in North America and Europe. We look forward to working together to extend their reach in Asia.
