SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - Apr 25, 2012) - [ Symform ] today announced a Series B round of financing designed to fuel the continued growth and global expansion of the Symform [ Cloud Storage ] Network. Led by WestRiver Capital, the series also includes full participation from existing investors OVP and Longworth Venture Partners. The company has closed $8 million and reserved up to $3 million in the series to add a strategic investor in 2012, bringing the total Series B round to $11 million. As part of the investment, Erik Anderson of WestRiver Capital joins the Symform Board of Directors.

This milestone comes amid another record quarter of growth for Symform across customer accounts, global reach and data stored in the Symform cloud. Symform has active users in 138 countries, up from 46 at the end of 2011. In the first quarter of 2012, the company grew customer accounts by more than 100% quarter-over-quarter, while the number of devices and data files stored on the Symform network jumped by more than 50 percent during the same period.

Also today, Symform announced the launch of a new Advisory Board featuring industry leaders and technology experts. The board includes Jon Gacek, CEO of Quantum; Dimitris Achiloptas, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California Santa Cruz; and Grant Peterson, CTO and Vice President of Engineering at DocuSign.

• Jon Gacek: Gacek is an industry veteran in the data backup and protection market. He is currently CEO of Quantum, a $1 Billion public company (NYSE: [ QTM ]). He was previously CFO and COO of Quantum, following an acquisition of Advanced Digital Information Corp, where Gacek was CFO.
• Dimitris Achiloptas: Achiloptas is currently teaching computer science at UC Santa Cruz. He moved to academia after a successful career in Microsoft Research. He is a renowned expert in random formulas, algorithmic analysis and sequencing.
• Grant Peterson: Currently Chief Technology Officer for DocuSign, the global leader in electronic signatures, Peterson has a proven track record of more than 15 years as a top engineering senior executive. Prior to DocuSign, he was vice president of product development for LexisNexis and director of product development for Primus Knowledge Solutions.

"Symform is a fundamentally superior way to store data in the cloud, and our continued strong growth and access to growth capital further validates that Symform is uniquely positioned to permanently disrupt the global cloud storage and backup market," said Matthew J. Schiltz, CEO, Symform. "We have an amazing team of employees, investors and advisory board members who are building Symform into a global standard for [ cloud storage and backup ]."

With its Series B funding, Symform has now raised $20 million. The company is moving aggressively toward a massive global footprint while enabling its technology to be easily embedded or attached to on-premise storage devices and other IT solutions, providing a cost-effective and seamless cloud-based data backup solution.

Symform is the first and only global peer-to-peer network for data storage, where users contribute excess local storage to the network in exchange for free or flat fee cloud storage. Analysts estimate up to 85 percent of local storage sits idle in most data centers and company networks.

About Symform
[ Symform ] ([ http://www.symform.com ]) is a revolutionary [ secure cloud storage ] and backup service. Symform's Global Cloud Storage Network protects your data, business and bottom line, providing unlimited offsite cloud storage and backup for the guaranteed lowest flat fee. Unlike traditional data center storage, Symform's global network encrypts, shreds and geo-distributes data. This disruptive technology provides greater security, higher performance and more cost-effective cloud data storage and backup than any alternative today, guaranteed. Customers join the Symform network by contributing excess local storage and, in exchange, receive affordable, unlimited backup. Join the revolution today and experience secure cloud storage and backup that is up to ten times more affordable, faster and safer. Email [ info@symform.com ].

Symform, Symform Global Cloud Storage Network, the Resilient Storage Architecture, and [ RAID-96 ] are trademarks of Symform, Inc. References to other companies and their products acknowledge the trademarks owned by their respective companies and are for reference purposes only.