Enterprise open source Toolkit

Open source support firm SourceLabs bags $7m

Martin LaMonica CNET News

Published: 27 Oct 2006 09:20 BST

SourceLabs said that it has secured $7m (£3.7m) in series B financing, as the company seeks to capitalise on the growing acceptance of open source software among corporations.

The money will be used to continue developing SourceLabs' automated support system and expand its sales operations, said chief executive Byron Sebastian on Wednesday.

SourceLabs was launched about two years ago around the idea of offering corporate customers support for open source software products, particularly Linux, the Apache web server, MySQL database and Java development software.

Earlier this year, it introduced software for automatically spotting and diagnosing software glitches, a system designed to speed up problem resolution.

Investor Brad Silverberg, a partner at venture capital firm Ignition Partners, said that SourceLabs' automated support system is the company's "secret weapon".

"Whenever there is a request, we will go and do a test case, a bake-off (against other vendors) and we've won every single one," he said. "Some of it is the quality of the people, but it's also the proprietary technology."

Investors in this round were Madrona Venture Group, which led the round, as well as Ignition Partners and Index Ventures.