MOUNTAIN VIEW--- Teneros Secures Largest Investment to Date in Application Continuity Market; Funding of $40 Million Fuels Tener
Teneros (http://www.teneros.com/) today announced that it has secured $40 million in late-stage funding. The round was led by Advanced Equities, Inc. (AEI), a financial services company that specializes in late-stage technology investments in the United States. This landmark investment in the application continuity space brings the total capital raised, to drive Teneros' leadership position in the market, to $84.5 million. The sector-leading funding support, by an impressive array of blue chip investors including Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, Sevin Rosen Funds and STAR Ventures, speaks to the undeniable value proposition, innovative proprietary technology, and strong competitive positioning of the Teneros offering.
Single-Vendor Solution Delivers Application Continuity
"Email system downtime creates major headaches for many companies, directly impacting business operations, revenue generation, customer service, and employee productivity," said Eric Burgener, senior analyst at The Taneja Group. "The lack of simple, reliable email availability solutions is a deterrent to proactively managing uptime for business critical communication."
Added Burgener, "Existing solutions for ensuring Microsoft Exchange uptime, the dominant corporate email system, involve the IT staff conducting a multi-vendor science project. However, Teneros offers a comprehensive, single-vendor solution, deployed as a remotely managed appliance that makes it easy for companies to manage Exchange continuity."
Teneros Application Continuity Appliances assure 24X7 operation of mission-critical applications, fueling corporations worldwide. At present, the company is focused on the leading business application -- email. Teneros appliances provide 99.99 to 99.999 percent email uptime for businesses running Microsoft Exchange. All Teneros appliances are remotely monitored, updated, and maintained via Teneros' Network Operations Center -- earning accolades from customers because Teneros appliances' hands-free IT does not add a burden on the already over-worked, in-house IT staff.
"The life blood of any company is the ability to communicate constantly, both internally as well as with vendors and customers," said David Ferris, senior analyst and founder, Ferris Research. "An estimated 65 percent of corporations worldwide depend upon Microsoft Exchange-centric communications to maintain business operations. These companies must prevent email downtime in their organizations when Exchange goes down or has to be taken down for maintenance."
Market Leadership With Disruptive Technology
"We invest in companies with leadership positions in their markets that deliver disruptive technologies," said Keith Daubenspeck, chairman and founder, Advanced Equities, Inc. at Advanced Equities Financial Corp. "Our exhaustive research led us to the conclusion that Teneros fits that profile. The company is ideally positioned in the application continuity market for Microsoft Exchange and unified communications with its comprehensive set of products and services. Teneros' market traction in a wide range of industries demonstrates its potential to become the dominant player in the application continuity market."
Financial Strength
"We have significantly exceeded our aggressive 50 percent quarter-over-quarter growth plan since 2006," said Steve Lewis, CEO of Teneros. "Our technology gives us a strong competitive advantage readily recognized by our market. We are gratified to have the support of Advanced Equities, and our existing venture partners, allowing Teneros to stay in front of the competition and establish market dominance. This latest round of funding will allow us to continue our current growth trajectory, establish a strong global presence, support building relationships with industry-leading strategic partners, and assure our customers of our longevity and financial stability."
Teneros' existing investors, Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Sevin Rosen Funds and STAR Ventures, maintained their positions in the company in the latest round of funding. Lewis added that the strong support of this group of visionary venture capitalists validates the company's leadership position.
"NEA is enthusiastic in its continued support of Teneros," said Scott Sandell, general partner, NEA. "The company's management team has established a strong track record of execution excellence, driven by their innovative technology and understanding of the market. This latest round of funding will enable Teneros to solidify and expand its market-leading position."
Teneros plans to use the fourth-round funds to cement its leadership in the market. As a highly valued Microsoft partner, the company will leverage its financial strength to be the preferred vendor of application continuity solutions.
The company is focused on Microsoft infrastructure applications, and the products are based upon Microsoft technology. The current family of Teneros appliances protects the unified communication infrastructure based on Microsoft Exchange in the event of any form of technology or site outage. Teneros appliances deliver normal continuity of operations for Exchange-centric, unified communications despite power failures, network outages, server failures, data corruption, or natural and human disasters. The success of Teneros appliances in solving the most critical IT challenge that corporations face was ratified by Microsoft, who honored Teneros with its coveted OEM hardware, Device Manufacturing Partner of the Year award.
About Advanced Equities, Inc.
Advanced Equities, Inc. is a leading venture capital investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of services to a substantial and diversified client base of emerging technology companies, institutional investors, and high-net-worth individuals. The company is a leading source of late-stage private equity to technology companies financed by the world's premier venture capital firms. Advanced Equities, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Advanced Equities Financial Corp. (AEFC), a diversified financial services organization. More information can be found at http://aei.advancedequities.com/.
About Teneros
Founded in 2003, Teneros has pioneered a new product category that assures continuity of operations for the mission-critical Microsoft applications fueling corporations worldwide -- the Teneros Application Continuity Appliance . Funded by Advanced Equities Financial Corp., Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Sevin Rosen Funds, and STAR Ventures, the company produces plug-&-go business continuity appliances that assure 99.99%-99.999% uptime of Microsoft infrastructure applications.
Teneros is an Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Microsoft Gold Partner and is the recipient of the 2007 Microsoft Partner of the Year Award, OEM Hardware Solutions, Device Manufacturing. Teneros was selected as CRN's 2007 Emerging Tech Dynamo and was honored by AlwaysOn as an AO 100 Private Company Award winner in 2006 and 2007. The company is headquartered at 321 East Evelyn Ave in Mountain View, Calif., 94041. More information is available at http://www.teneros.com/.