Datallegro Raises $6 Million to Unveil Database Software
By ANDREW SIMONS
A startup maker of data storage software has grabbed $6 million in a first round of venture capital funding.
Datallegro Inc. of Aliso Viejo raised the money from Santa Monica-based Palomar Ventures and Venrock Associates of Menlo Park.
The company makes software for storing and searching data. Datallegro plans to use its funding to launch its software, said Stuart Frost, Datallegro’s chief executive and founder.
Datallegro has set up shop in TechSpace in Aliso Viejo, an office campus formerly known as Enfrastructure. The company has 12 workers.
The plan is to offer Datallegro’s software along with data storage computers made by other companies, according to Frost. Datallegro’s software is made to be installed in a company’s server room.
The company’s goal is to bridge a gap between new and older data. As businesses take on more data each day, old sales records and other information often are offloaded onto a specialized database, like the kind offered by Dayton, Ohio-based NCR Corp. and others.
Datallegro is looking to compete with NCR and others on price.
“Basically, we’ve taken some commodity hardware, added our custom solution and it gives you savings,” Frost said.
Searches using Datallegro’s software can be sped up “by a factor of 10 or more,” according to Frost.
The company’s software is designed to work with database applications made by Oracle Corp. A version for databases from Siebel Systems Inc. is in the works.
Frost has headed a startup before. He founded Britain’s Select Software Tools Ltd. in 1988, which he led to a public offering in 1996. He left the company after it went public.
Frost has a degree in computer engineering from Nottingham University in England and began his career in 1983 as a programmer and systems analyst.
Datallegro’s funding is the latest in a series for software makers.
Bitfone Corp., another local software startup based in Laguna Niguel, raised $20 million earlier this year, bringing the company’s total funding to $57 million.
Bitfone makes software that allows wireless service providers to send software updates to phones via their networks.
And Irvine-based DataLabs Inc., a maker of software for healthcare clinical trials, raised $5.5 million in a first round of funding earlier this year.
