Exoscale, the Swiss cloud hosting provider, has announced a capital investment by Swisscom Ventures, the venture capital arm of Swisscom AG, the leading telecoms and IT provider in Switzerland.
This fresh infusion of capital will be used to fuel Exoscale's expansion in Europe and bolster its position as a serious alternative to U.S. rivals.
Exoscale is the leading Swiss cloud hosting platform, providing virtual machines with unparalleled performance, a state-of-the-art object storage platform and additional infrastructure services. Integrating the latest findings in resource optimization and high-availability, fault-tolerant, distributed systems, Exoscale provides robust cloud services at an affordable cost.
One of only a handful of European cloud firms, Exoscale is ideally positioned to serve the fastexpanding Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market through a focus on simple, scalable and secure cloud services. By providing fast, secure and reliable virtual machines at an affordable cost, coupled with customer support in three languages, Exoscale is a European company at heart. Headed by industry veterans Antoine Coetsier (CEO) and Pierre-Yves Ritschard (CTO), Exoscale aims to attract wider European attention and to provide an expanded offering in terms of location and service. The cornerstones of Exoscale's expansion Geographically, the firm will extend its footprint with the opening of a new office in Berlin on March 1st, followed by further new locations in other European countries and Asia.
On the infrastructure front, in March Exoscale will unveil its second data center, near Zurich, which will round out the services already provided by its other Swiss-based facility. Housed deep below the Swiss Alps in a disused military bunker, the facility offers the highest level of physical security, together with sophisticated technical security (24/7 CCTV monitoring, physical alarms systems and biometric access control).
In addition, Exoscale also intends to slash its prices – by up to a third in some categories. These price reductions will translate into one of the most competitive offerings in Europe. For example, an entry-level instance offering 512MB RAM and 10GB SSD persistent disk storage is available for $6 a month, while 32GB RAM and 400GB disk storage comes in at under $300 a month. "We are going to continue to expand and develop dedicated solutions for SaaS customers, including the rollout of innovative infrastructure services for this segment," says Exoscale CEO, Antoine Coetsier.
All of these strategic developments are fuelled by the undisclosed capital investment by Swisscom Ventures. Swisscom is Switzerland’s leading telecom provider renowned for its visionary technological approach with consumers and enterprises. Swisscom Ventures invests in innovative areas that are strategic for Swisscom, with infrastructure being a crucial area of investment.
Commenting, investment officer with Swisscom Ventures Stefan Kuentz, said: "Exoscale is on the cusp of a great market opportunity. The firm has developed a robust platform and is putting all its energies into supporting its approach. The Exoscale team is making a critical contribution to the Swiss public cloud market and is strongly committed to expanding across Europe. We are delighted to be supporting their growth."
