ioFabric represents Canada in the 10 Coolest Storage Startups Of 2015

Toronto-based software-defined storage (SDS) company ioFabric Inc. is the only Canadian selection in CRN’s list of Top 10 Coolest Storage Startups, identifying the top innovative vendors developing new data storage products.

“Every year brings the IT industry a new bumper crop of storage startups,” wrote CRN editor Joseph F. Kovar. “Toronto-based ioFABRIC in July came out of stealth mode with the unveiling of its first round of funding, and followed up a month later with the introduction of ioFABRIC Vicinity, a flash-optimized, software-defined storage solution for multi-vendor data centers.”

Companies chosen for the list had to have recently emerged from stealth operations mode, and unveiled their first offering during the year.

ioFabric, who had been operating in stealth mode for two years, emerged from stealth mode in July, announcing a seed funding round led by Real Ventures and other private investors.

“This has already been an extraordinary year for our company, and to be named one of the coolest startups by CRN is huge validation for our approach to transforming the efficiency and economics of storage through QoS-driven automation,” said ioFABRIC co-founder and CEO Steven Lamb. “The entire list of vendors is well worth absorbing – there are some truly innovative and remarkable new visions for solving problems in data centers.”

CRN, which started in 1982 as Computer Reseller News, is published by the Channel Company, which focuses on IT suppliers, providers and end users.

ioFabric’s Vicinity product, which automates advanced data storage, won the Most Innovative Enterprise Business Application award at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California this past August.

Founded in 2013, the ioFabric team consists of a group of serial entrepreneurs, co-founder and chief technology officer Rayan Zachariassen, vice president of marketing Andrew Flint, and business development director Nigel Miller, and co-founder and CEO Steven Lamb, who have worked together for the past 20 years, successfully piloting four previous companies to exits.