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Interface21 Secures $10M Investment from Benchmark CapitalSAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)-- Interface21, a leading provider of trusted open source software for building and deploying mission-critical enterprise applications, today announced that it has received $10 million in Series A financing from Benchmark Capital. The new funds will be used to accelerate product development and expand marketing, sales and support infrastructure to meet the growing enterprise demand for Spring Portfolio products and services. The financing follows a period of impressive growth for Interface21, whose core Spring Framework has achieved unquestionable ubiquity in enterprise Java architectures. Downloaded more than three million times to date, Spring's level of penetration exceeds that of any single application server. Interface21 has driven further innovation in the open source arena through continued development of the Spring Framework, expansion of the Spring portfolio of products, and the forging of key relationships with companies such as IBM, Oracle and BEA Systems. "For nearly a decade, Benchmark has maintained a deep conviction in the transformative power of open source on the software industry. Through our investments in Red Hat, MySQL and JBoss, we have seen first hand how the democracy of adoption and direct access, enabled by open source, radically improves the software value proposition for enterprise customers," said Peter Fenton, general partner, Benchmark Capital. "However, very few open source projects rise above the noise to achieve critical mass, and even fewer drive fundamental product innovations. Interface21 and its Spring Framework possess extremely rare qualities that we believe will lead to open source success -- near ubiquitous adoption, a profitable business model, and a compelling vision that delivers innovative offerings to the enterprise." "This initial funding comes at a key moment for Interface21, as the use of Spring continues to proliferate and as we scale to meet the needs of our rapidly growing developer community and customer base," said Rod Johnson, CEO of Interface21 and founder of the Spring Framework. "With an impressive track record of growing open source companies into market leaders, Benchmark represents an invaluable partner and resource for Interface21. We look forward to working with Benchmark to build on our success and strengthen our central position in enterprise Java." About Interface21 Interface21 is a leading provider of trusted open source software for mission-critical enterprise applications. Interface21 created and sustains the development of the Spring Framework, the leading Java(TM) and Java EE(TM) application framework. Through the Spring family of products, Interface21 has helped hundreds of organizations, including some of the world's largest financial institutions and public sector clients, build and deploy mission-critical applications that boost developer productivity and increase enterprise ROI. For more information, please visit http://www.interface21.com. About Benchmark Capital Benchmark Capital, a leading international venture capital firm, was founded in 1995 to help talented entrepreneurs with original ideas build successful technology companies. Benchmark's general partners take a team-oriented, labor-intensive approach to venture investing to deliver a superior level of service to the firm's portfolio companies. Benchmark's portfolio includes high-profile start-ups like Bebo, Infinera, MySQL, OpenTable, Second Life, Tellme, Yelp, and Zillow, and franchise companies such as eBay, Juniper Networks and Red Hat. Managing more than $3.5 billion in committed venture capital, Benchmark has offices in Silicon Valley, Europe and Israel. For more information on Benchmark Capital, visit its website at http://www.benchmark.com. |
