Skytap Scores $10M More, Led by Boston Investor OpenView

Cloud-computing startups are getting older and wiser. Seattle-based Skytap announced today it has raised $10 million in Series C financing led by new investor OpenView Venture Partners, based in Boston. Skytap’s existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Ignition Partners, and Washington Research Foundation also participated in the round. OpenView senior managing director Scott Maxwell is joining Skytap’s board of directors as part of the deal.

Skytap was co-founded in 2006 (formerly called Illumita) by a pair of University of Washington computer science professors. The company makes software that helps businesses and government agencies manage “virtual” machines that can handle data storage, processing, and networking for things like software development, quality assurance, and testing. It’s all part of a broader trend towards “cloud automation,” in which companies want to run their existing applications in the Internet cloud as simply and efficiently as possible. Skytap is one of the startups providing the tools for that.

The new money is being used to ramp up the company’s sales and marketing efforts, as well as “refuel for aggressive execution on all fronts,” said Scott Roza, Skytap’s CEO, in a statement. “This funding will enable us to expand our current customer relationships, further build out our sales team, and develop new solutions that help customers accelerate their transformation to the cloud.”

Skytap previously raised a $6 million Series A round, followed by a $7 million Series B in 2009. The company says it has generated year-over-year revenue growth of more than 300 percent.