Data Center Battery Monitoring Firm Canara Raises $4.25M update from July 2014

Canara, a provider of monitoring and predictive  analytics for data center backup power systems, has raised $4.25 million in equity. The round was provided by Columbia Capital and will be used to implement a strategic growth plan CEO Tom Mertz and chief business officer Steve Manos (both appointed recently) have put in place.

Batteries are often  at fault in data center outages when they don’t kick in as expected. The San Rafael, California-based company’s devices continuously analyze data center backup batteries to predict when they are going to die, helping avoid unexpected battery failure. The value proposition is risk mitigation, higher efficiency and more reliable backup power systems.

Mertz, a former exec at QTS, joined in June and brought Manos aboard earlier this month. The new leadership has an aggressive growth plan, which the equity round will support.

Manos leads business development, marketing and other revenue-generation efforts. He is well known in the industry from his time at Lee Technologies, a data center management services company acquired by Schneider in 2011, and from his frequent speaking engagements.

Combination of the two new executives may make Canara more visible in the industry.

The funding will go toward aggressive growth objectives for sales, strengthening partner relationships and the product itself, Mertz said. “This is a major expansion of Columbia Capital’s investment in Canara, which is a great vote of support for our growth plan and a reflection of how bullish Columbia is about the growing market for predictive data center analytics.”

“Every company that operates a data center should be looking at these solutions in order to protect their investment and maximize uptime,” said Patrick Hendy, partner at Columbia Capital and a Canara board member.  “Organizations that utilize Canara’s solutions rave about how indispensable they become, and Tom’s growth plan will make these products a vital part of more organizations’ data center management systems.”