Cloud Elements Raises $3.1M in Series A Funding
A Denver based startup, Cloud Elements, has just received $3.1 million in a Series A round of funding. Founded in October 2012, Cloud Elements is a technology startup that provides a platform for application development. Investors include Virginia based Grotech Ventures, California based Icon Venture Partners, along with Galvanize Ventures.
The original idea planed for Cloud Elements by co-founders Mark Geene and Vineet Joshi, was to build a platform to simplify cloud application integrations and empower SaaS app developers with the ability to create “Cooperative Apps.”
Mark Geene, CEO of Cloud Elements said, “The first generation of integration platforms rely on complex, legacy enterprise service buses that are out of step with the RESTful API approach dominating the cloud today…Cloud Elements is the only integration platform that is 100% consumable through easy-to-use REStful APIs.” Geene continued, “The great news about the cloud is that it’s easy to develop new things and offer new services, but it’s difficult to get them all to work together. That’s what we’re making happen.”
Cloud Elements offers a single API (application programming interface) that can easily collaborate between multiple cloud services subscribed to by its users, such as cloud storage providers including, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and OneDrive.
Joe Zell, a general partner at one of the investing organizations, Grotech Ventures, explained, “Applications need to integrate easily with a multitude of cloud services to compete in today’s marketplace…Cloud Elements makes it simple for developers to integrate with the top platforms in a category for significantly less time and cost than custom development.”
Cloud Elements has large plans for this investment. It is reported that they aim to almost double their staff size from 24 employees to around 40 employees by the end of this year.
Geene has expressed Cloud Elements excitement for this wave of funding. He said, “We found it was a great time to be raising money. There was a tremendous amount of interest in what we were doing…It’s definitely a fun time.”
Cloud Elements are not alone in their excitement. Jeff Hinck, a general partner at Icon Venture Partners said, “We believe that Cloud Elements has an excellent vision and great momentum in the industry…Their leadership team has what it takes to scale the company quickly to keep up with their growing customer base.”
