Appcore Raises $6M Series B To Expand Cloud Computing Infrastructure Growth In Asia

Today Appcore, a company that offers complete cloud computing infrastructure (read: hardware and software) to clients including mobile network providers, data centers, and enterprises, has announced a $6 million Series B round today. The company, which is headquartered in Des Moines but has offices in Hong Kong, Manila and Singapore, says it will use the funding to fuel additional R&D, and to help continue its rapid expansion in fast-growing Asian markets.

The company is sort of like an Apple for the cloud computing sector, according to Appcore CEO Brian Donaghy. In an interview about the news, he said that if you think about Apple’s approach to consumer electronics, which includes a holistic approach that involves creating hardware and software perfectly tailored for each other, that’s what Appcore is doing with local cloud infrastructure.

“We automate the business of cloud computing,” Donaghy said. “Behind the scenes for data centers or telephone companies or large enterprises, we bring in an integrated, fully supported, public or private cloud infrastructure  How we’re similar to Apple is we do both the hardware and the software and combine it together for a really seamless user experience.”

Appcore also works with the existing infrastructure that businesses already have in place, so they can add a cloud-based foundation to systems that enterprises already have in place, like networked storage area networks (SAN), as well as payment systems, accounting, etc. Some examples of what customers can do with Appcore’s offerings are delivering a public cloud offering, similar to what an Amazon or Rackspace would do, and in Asia, telephone customer companies do the same. Private cloud is also an option, as in the case of the Missouri Fiber Alliance, which uses Appcore to deliver an internally focused, private cloud to the various telecommunication companies using its fiber network.

Appcore is operating in a busy, active space with major players like Amazon EC2 as direct competition. But the reason the space is so active is that there’s continues to be plenty of demand for the product, and as an IaaS provider, Appcore is doing well by making sure its solution appeals to the business instincts of its target customers, while keeping the infrastructure side of things in the background.

This funding will help fund further R&D developments and staffing in their Iowa and Manilla facilities, Donaghy says, as well as helping them continue to pursue additional growth opportunities in terms of customer acquisition in the Asian market. There’s still plenty of room to run in this growing field, and Appcore’s new funding will help it increase the pace of its growth.