NGD Systems Inc. plans to bring scale to a new type of computational storage drive, at a time when the need for greater computing power and storage capacity is exploding.
The Irvine-based company raised a $20 million Series C round of funding last week—bringing its total backing to $45 million.
The money’s expected to help NGD expand production capacity for its devices in markets such as the Edge and core data centers, as well as enhance sales and marketing efforts.
NGD’s computational storage drives allow users to deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning to perform data processing inside the storage device itself; it’s a new approach to memory that aims to improve response times and save bandwidth.
Traditional storage devices force data to travel back and forth to a computer’s CPU or GPU for processing. That requires more computing power, and it takes longer to process data.
The ability to process data within the device itself using NGD’s technology is particularly useful because not all data is valued equally, explained Vice President of Marketing Scott Shadley.
“You can take large data sets, and let the storage device prioritize the smaller set of valued data,” he added.
Officials say the need for ultra-fast, selective data processing will continue to increase, as more edge computing and Internet of Things devices, such as autonomous cars, collect and churn data constantly.
Bigger, and Faster
NGD’s current estimate of the addressable market is about $1 billion of the multibillion-dollar storage industry, but it’s only a matter of time before broader adoption occurs, according to Shadley.
In addition to being the first storage device of its type, NGD also claims that its “Newport Platform” has the highest storage capacity on the market, up to 32 terabytes, according to the company.
By comparison, Western Digital Corp. in 2018 took the wraps off what it called “the world’s highest-capacity hard drive,” one with 15 terabytes.
A one terabyte drive can hold some 330,000 3MB photos, or nearly 250,000 MP3 files.
Smart Money
NGD’s bold claims are gaining some notable investors, including those with local ties.
The latest $20 million round was led by MIG Capital—the private equity arm of the Merage family—in Newport Beach.
Richard Merage, son of Paul Merage and chief executive of MIG Capital, joined the company’s board of directors.
It’s a new direction for MIG Capital, though Merage expressed excitement about the “pioneering” company’s ability to shake up the storage industry by handling huge amounts of data and heavy workloads.
“Two of the most powerful trends in the future are AI and the cloud and we see NGD is aimed at the crosshairs of these growing markets,” Merage said in a statement.
The round also included participation from Western Digital Capital Global—the strategic investment arm of the San Jose storage device giant with significant operations in Irvine—and existing investors Orange Digital Ventures, Partech Ventures, BGV and Plug-N-Play.
Dan Flynn, president of Western Digital Capital and an OC resident, will serve as a board observer.
Full Circle
Co-founders Nader Salessi, Vladimir Alves and Richard Mataya held senior positions at Western Digital for nearly three years before departing in 2013 to launch NGD.
Since then, the team tripled its office space, and now occupies a 9,000-square-foot office just south of the Irvine Spectrum.
The company is nearing 50 employees, with plans to add about 10 to 20 employees between sales and engineering.
