Follow The Money: 12 Tech VC Investments In February

Cold Weather, Hot Startups

Parts of the country endured cold, snowy weather throughout the month of February. But the climate for startups stayed hot as young technology companies landed millions of dollars in venture capital funding.

Here's a roundup of a dozen companies that scored with venture capitalists, startups focused on a range of technologies, including big data analytics, converged infrastructure, mobile application development, cloud software and next-gen IT management.

Pivot3

Headquarters: Austin, Texas

CEO: Ron Nash

New Funding: $45 million

Round: 13th Round, Equity and Bank Funding

Backers: Argonaut Private Equity, S3 Ventures, InterWest Partners, Mesirow Financial Private Equity and the Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati investment fund

Pivot develops hyper-converged infrastructure appliances. Its vSTAC software lets virtual servers, storage and networking run together in a single node. The company's products are most prevalent in videosurveillance, virtual desktop and disaster recovery applications.

Pivot3 has now raised a total of more than $173 million in venture financing. The company will use the new funding to grow its sales and marketing operations and expand its channel partner strategy.

RapidMiner

Headquarters: Boston

CEO: Ingo Mierswa

New Funding: $15 million

Round: Series B

Backers: Ascent Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners, Earlybird Venture Capital and Open Ocean Capital

One of the leading companies (according to Gartner) in the advanced analytics platforms segment of the burgeoning big data arena, RapidMiner develops what it describes as self-service, advanced analytics for next-generation data scientists. The company said its coding-free technology brings predictive analytics to a wider audience of business analysts and data scientists.

The company will use the new funding to "execute on aggressive growth plans and boost hiring in the areas of partnerships and alliances, research and development, sales and marketing, and customer support."

Instructure

Headquarters: Salt Lake City

CEO: Josh Coates

New Funding: $40 million

Round: Series E

Backers: Insight Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Epic Ventures

Instructure develops the cloud-based Canvas learning management software that connects teachers and students at K-12 and higher-education institutions. Instructure described the funding as a "pre-IPO" round of financing. It brings the company's total funding to $90 million.

Instructure said it would use the new financing to launch its Bridge corporate learning and engagement platform, marking the company's entrance into the corporate learning market.

Sqrrl

Headquarters: Cambridge, Mass.

CEO: Mark Terenzoni

New Funding: $7.1 million

Round: Series B

Backers: Rally Ventures, Atlas Ventures and Matrix Partners

Sqrrl develops big data analytics software for uncovering hidden patterns, trends and links within huge volumes of data. The company particularly targets its technology for use in cybersecurity applications by collecting security, network, endpoint and user data into a single platform for analysis.

Sqrrl also launched Sqrrl Enterprise 2.0 in February with what the company described as a "full-stack security analytics solution for detecting and responding to advanced cybersecurity threats" at both businesses and government agencies.

SkyGiraffe

Headquarters: Menlo Park, Calif.

CEO: Boaz Hecht

New Funding: $3 million

Round: Series A

Backers: Trilogy Equity Partners and 500 Startups

SkyGiraffe provides tools that businesses use to quickly develop and deploy mobile applications that tie into a company's back-end IT systems, such as corporate ERP and CRM applications.

SkyGiraffe, which has its research and development operations in Israel, will use the new financing to expand its sales and marketing activities, grow its U.S. operations and accelerate product development.

Knowmail

Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel

CEO: Haim Senior

New Funding: $1.2 million

Round: Seed

Backers: Plus Ventures, 2B Angels, AfterDox and INE Ventures

Knowmail develops personal assistant Software-as-a-Service applications that help organizations and their employees manage and prioritize the huge volumes of emails that inundate their in-boxes.

Knowmail was founded last year, and the company will use the new funding to expand its development and sales teams. The infusion of money also will enable the company to add more partnerships.

Tracx

Headquarters: New York

CEO: Eran Gilad

New Funding: $18 million

Round: Series C

Backers: Edison Partners, Flybridge Capital, Mousse Partners, Klinenstein, and Fields & Co.

Tracx develops a cloud-based social media management system that businesses use to analyze and "monetize" social media postings. The company's total funding is now $28 million.

Tracx will use the additional capital to grow its product development, add sales and support staff, and open more offices around the globe.

Graylog

Headquarters: Houston

CEO: Michael Sklar

New Funding: $2.5 million

Round: Seed

Backers: Mercury Fund, Crosslink Capital, Draper Associates and High-Tech Grunderfonds

Graylog develops open-source log analysis software that the company describes as an affordable alternative to Splunk. Businesses use the software to collect IT machine data and analyze it to drive operational efficiencies.

Graylog will use the funds to accelerate product development and expand the software's commercial capabilities. The company also plans to offer services and support to help customers deploy Graylog's software in production.

ScienceLogic

Headquarters: Reston, Va.

CEO: Dave Link

New Funding: $43 million

Round: Series D

Backers: Goldman Sachs, NEA and Intel Capital

ScienceLogic develops IT monitoring and management software that businesses use to help manage hybrid IT systems, including servers, applications and networks. In January, the company reported that in 2014 revenue grew 135 percent and subscription customer acquisition increased 125 percent.

The company plans to use the additional funding to accelerate product development, and expand its sales and marketing operations, including going after international market opportunities.

WeTransfer

Headquarters: London

CEO: Bas Beerens

New Funding: $25 million

Round: Series A

Backers: Highland Capital Partners Europe

Launched in 2009, WeTransfer is a file-sharing service that helps people easily send large digital files. The service now has 70 million users and more than doubled its revenue in the last year.

WeTransfer will use the additional funding to continue developing its product portfolio and build its brand in Europe, the U.S. and beyond.

ClusterHQ

Headquarters: Los Altos, Calif./Bristol, U.K.

CEO: Mark Davis

New Funding: $12 million

Round: Series A

Backers: Accel Partners London and Canaan Partners

ClusterHQ develops technology for running databases, key-value stores and queues inside Docker containers. Its open-source Flocker software helps businesses manage data-backed services running in containers.

ClusterHQ recently hired Davis, the founder of software-defined storage pioneer Virsto Software, which VMware acquired in 2013, as the company's CEO.

ClusterHQ will use the additional funding to expand its technical resources and go-to-market efforts.

Klipfolio

Headquarters: Ottawa

CEO: Allan Wille

New Funding: $6.2 million

Round: Series A

Backers: OMERS Ventures, BDC Capital, Mistral Venture Partners, Fundfire, BOLDstart Ventures, Acadia Woods and CommonAngels Ventures

Klipfolio, launched in 2012, provides cloud-based software that people use to build dashboards with key business performance metrics. The company now has more than 2,000 midmarket customers in financial services, health-care and consumer goods, as well as marketing agencies and nonprofit organizations.

The company will use the new financing to continue enhancing its product. The company also is expanding its Ottawa office to accommodate its staff, which more than doubled in 2014.