Green Cloud Raises $7.5 Million, Will Pursue M&A

Green Cloud Technologies aims to go big with its partner program.

The company on Monday announced the closing of $7.5 million in new financing. The new funds, coming primarily from Bridge Bank, will fuel the expansion of Green Cloud’s channel-partner program and provide capital for potential acquisitions.

The cloud technology solutions provider sells exclusively through the channel.

Green Cloud CEO Shay Houser told us that the new financing will allow the company to beef up its partner program with new sales and marketing personnel. He said that new talent give the South Carolina-based company the resources it needs to move westward. Houser said about 80 percent of Green Cloud’s approximate 390 channel partners are east of the Mississippi.

“Where we’ve been weak recently, is most of our presence is east of the Mississippi, and this is going to allow us to start putting resources west of the Mississippi and moving in more of a western direction than we’ve had in the past,” he noted.{ad}

Houser said the company has already been building in Texas and is looking forward to providing more support in that region.

In addition to building the partner program, Houser said Green Cloud is looking to get “aggressive” with M&A. He said one category of potential acquisition targets is small cloud-service providers.

“Folks that have technology that we don’t have today. Maybe it’s some specialized security focus we don’t have, or it’s just an add-on. Meaning, they might have a single data center and maybe a western geography, and maybe they’ve just gotten to a point where they can’t scale much further. They need access to capital. Companies like that would be really good fits for Green Cloud,” he said.

The financing consists of $5 million in a senior line of credit from Bridge Bank, $1.8 million in new equity and $750,000 in additional investments from Spring Capital Partners.

“We are excited about the momentum that the company’s market strategy has demonstrated and we look forward to supporting Green Cloud’s future growth plans,” said Blake Reid, vice president of Bridge Bank.