Peak Lands $16 Million to Grow Channel-Centric Cloud Platform

Enterprise-level IaaS cloud provider Peak has landed $16 million in debt and equity funding in the last year, which the channel-centric company said it will use to back its growth initiatives.

Peak, which previously was known as PeakColo, provides cloud services sold through a wide range of channel partners including VARs, agents and service providers, and a two-tier model through distributors Avnet (AVT) and Comstor.

The company positions itself as among a handful of cloud providers selling exclusively through channel partners who, in turn, either white-label or resell its cloud platform. Rather than owning cloud nodes, Peak partners with other hosted data center providers.

Peak, which maintains additional locations in Atlanta; Chicago; New York; New Jersey; Santa Clara, California; Seattle; and London, said $7 million of the funding raised over the last 12 months, from Meritage Funds and Sweetwater Capital, has been allocated to support Peak’s expansion of its cloud node capacities in existing locations.

The remaining newly raised $9 million stemmed from the same funding sources and also included new investor Ares Capital. Peak said that backing would go to support key partnerships, including a new deal with Telx, a provider of global interconnectivity and data center solutions, and to further its demand generation activities.

“With the additional funding, Peak is able to expand into additional markets, serve a larger client base and expand product development,” said Luke Norris, Peak founder and chief executive. “This gives Peak a substantial advantage and allows us to support our mission to power clouds globally.”

David Solomon, Meritage Funds managing director, said Peak’s market advantage is selling through the channel.

“Peak dominates a unique niche in the cloud infrastructure industry; they are the only provider that distributes cloud services exclusively through channel partners,” he said.