Milpitas-Based Pliant Technology Raises $8 Million in First Round

Milpitas, Calif. -- Pliant Technology, a Milpitas-based start-up developing a new class of solid state storage devices that it calls enterprise flash drives, said that it has raised $8 million in its first round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company said that it will use the proceeds to complete development of devices, which it said will be capable of higher levels of performance and increased energy efficiency. The devices, based on a new controller design and software architecture, are due out late this year. Pliant was founded by Mike Chenery (president), the former vice president of advanced product engineering at Fujitsu; Doug Prins (chief architect) a former consultant for Fujitsu, Emulex and Q-Logic; and Aaron Olbrich (CTO), who formerly spent time at both Fujitsu and IBM. Chairman Jim McCoy previously co-founded both Maxtor and Quantum, and CEO Amyl Ahola is the former CEO of TeraStor and a vice president at Seagate and Control Data.
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