Chemicals producer Koch Industries’ corporate venturing unit, Koch Disruptive Technologies, led a $54m series B round for US-based cloud network technology provider Alkira yesterday.
GV, an early-stage investment subsidiary of internet and technology conglomerate Alphabet, also took part in the round, along with venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins.
Alkira has created a network infrastructure product called Alkira Cloud Services Exchange which enables organisations to create a hybrid or multi-cloud network that connects public clouds, data centres and remote users and sites.
Koch was already among the startup’s customers, and Jason Illian, managing director of Koch Disruptive Technologies, is joining its board of directors.
The company emerged from stealth in April this year with $30m in series A financing from Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital and follow-on funding by GV. It said this week its overall funding now stands at $76m, indicating the GV investment was rolled into the latest round.
Chase Koch, president of Koch Disruptive Technologies, said: “Koch Industries is a significant customer to cloud providers, and we have seen first-hand how Alkira’s powerful and intuitive network simplifies a company’s transition to the cloud.
“At Koch’s scale an agile, global, end-to end network is critical to our competitiveness and growth and we are excited to lead Alkira’s series B investment.”
