Online retailer Amazon and technology company Webroot Software have joined as new investors a consortium providing $9m in the series B round for Sonian, a US-based email archiving company.
The two strategic investors joined Sonian’s existing backers, venture capital firms Summerhill Venture Partners, which span out from Canada-based telecoms operator BCE, and Prism VentureWorks. Prism and Summerhill had provided Sonian’s $5.6m series A round in September 2009, two years after the portfolio company’s launch.
Jeff Blackburn, senior vice-president of business development for Amazon, said: "By leveraging Amazon Web Services, Sonian is avoiding capital expenditure and focusing resources on product innovations and improving their time to market with those innovations."
Dick Williams, executive president of Webroot, said: "Storing, protecting, analyzing and retrieving critical corporate communications and data has become a business imperative. Previous solutions have been both too costly and too complex."
Jeff Dickerson, executive president of Sonian since November after his previous company, Metatomix, was sold to Versata in August, said: "The addition of Amazon and Webroot as strategic investors, with the continued participation of Summerhill and Prism, further underscore the opportunities ahead of us.