| By Maureen O'Gara |
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| January 16, 2013 07:00 AM EST |
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Symform, the distributed cloud backup and storage service, has topped up its $11 million B round with the $3 million strategic investment it was waiting for.
The money is coming from Second Century Ventures (SCV), the venture capital fund of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the largest trade association in America.
The original $8 million came from Longworth Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners and WestRiver Capital.
The Symform-NAR deal is different than most. NAR is going to make Symform’s annual subscription available to its 1.1 million members as a membership benefit and cover Symform’s discounted cost.
Symform Booth at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley - Interview time!
Symform and NAR also figure that they’ll get access to related industries, such as construction, and international associations. And real estate is still a trillion-dollar business in the US.
The deal was put together by Symform CEO Matthew Schiltz, the former CEO of SaaS e-signature company DocuSign, where he cut a similar deal with NAR. DocuSign is now the de facto way to sign real estate documents.
SCV and NAR CEO Dale Stinton said, “Second Century Ventures is committed to identifying and helping develop technology solutions that help our realtor members maintain a competitive edge while growing their businesses. As the volume of electronic information continues to grow, proper data backup and protection is becoming mission-critical for all businesses everywhere. Symform is a great fit in our investment portfolio and is also tailor-made for realtors, who have a strong need for a cost- effective cloud data backup solution.”
These realtors are mostly mid-market agencies and brokers so Symform, which aims to build the world’s largest virtual data center, thinks it’s competing with Mozy and Carbonite.
