Advancing Storage Tech and Data Security. Our Investment in Avaneidi
June 20th, 2024
We are excited to announce our investment in Avaneidi, leading their €8 million Series A funding round through our UV3 fund. Avaneidi is revolutionizing enterprise storage with a focus on robust security and sustainability—a critical need as AI becomes increasingly central to business operations. Their innovative approach addresses one of the main bottlenecks to wider AI adoption: secure and efficient data management.
Data fuels artificial intelligence, and secure storage and management are crucial when dealing with sensitive information. Avaneidi’s advancements in storage technology deliver exceptional performance, enhance security, and reduce energy consumption. We firmly believe that data security and governance are fundamental to the responsible development of AI. While large language models often dominate the conversation, secure physical data storage, especially sensitive information, is essential.
This operation exemplifies our investment thesis in the field of AI. We are focusing on the bottlenecks to AI adoption, and the issues of governance, security, and storage are among the most important. Data primarily reside in physical memories, and you need governance of physical memories. If we want to use AI productively, we must apply it to sensitive data. A hospital, for example, cannot have data and algorithms circulating in the cloud. Avaneidi’s product responds to this need, creating a secure environment.
Avaneidi’s unique “security by design” approach sets them apart in the enterprise storage solutions market. Instead of relying solely on software protection, Avaneidi focuses on secure hardware as the foundation of their systems, providing an additional layer of security. This bottom-up approach ensures that the overall data governance is rooted in secure hardware, differentiating it from other solutions in the market.
In addition to focusing on security, Avaneidi is committed to promoting sustainability within its product development lifecycle. By leveraging both its proprietary “secure” hardware and its proprietary operating system, Avaneidi’s storage appliances significantly reduce their hardware footprint compared to existing solutions. This makes its products more sustainable and contributes to a reduced carbon footprint.
Avaneidi’s custom-designed chips and advanced algorithms bring several benefits to enterprise storage solutions compared to off-the-shelf alternatives. With higher security, lower power consumption, and extended ESSD lifetime, their solutions offer their clients a better total cost of ownership. Regarding energy efficiency, Avaneidi employs specific technologies and strategies to reduce energy consumption in data centers. Their proprietary Error Correction Code improves data reliability and reduces correction effort, while their proprietary Operating System optimizes data movement and replication.
Avaneidi has successfully addressed real-world challenges for clients in the finance, defense, and healthcare sectors. For example, their technology offers a back-door-free storage system, which is particularly important for mission-critical applications where customers are highly concerned about hidden backdoors.
Avaneidi is collecting requests to deploy its storage appliances in different environments, mainly on-premises, to validate its core technology with different usage models and workloads, expand its market reach, and validate its storage solutions. Customers can already test Avaneidi’s storage appliance using its “hands-on demo lab” at its main facility.
Avaneidi was founded in 2020 and has a team that brings together veterans of the storage sector with young engineers. Avaneidi’s founder, Rino Micheloni, brings over three decades of international (in the US, Germany, and South Korea) experience in the semiconductor industry and is one of the world’s prominent experts in flash memory technology and solid-state drives. His career began in 1994 when he joined STMicroelectronics in the Non-Volatile Memories (NVM) area, a field he initially knew little about but saw as a great starting point for his career. He told his wife, “I’ll work in this field for a couple of years and then move on to something different.” Three decades and numerous positions later, he remains a prominent figure in the industry, holding more than 300 patents worldwide and authoring several publications.
Rino is not alone in his quest. The Avaneidi team is a dynamic combination of storage industry veterans and brilliant young engineers, ensuring a well-rounded and competent approach to their innovative solutions. With him at the helm, Avaneidi is backed by deep technical knowledge, experience, and a passion for pushing the boundaries of what is possible in enterprise storage solutions. This unique blend of expertise and innovation sets Avaneidi apart in the industry. It positions them to succeed in revolutionizing enterprise storage with secure, efficient, and sustainable solutions.
We’re thrilled to partner with Rino Micheloni and his stellar team to empower organizations to confidently leverage AI technology, knowing their data is managed securely and responsibly. Learn more about Avaneidi and stay updated on their latest developments by visiting their website.
