Open Source Funding Watch: MontaVista
MontaVista Software, an embedded Linux vendor, announced yesterday that it has lined up $21m in a series G round of funding (view press release) led by Siemens Venture Capital. NEC, Alloy Ventures, US Venture Partners, Aplix and other unspecified firms also took part. This round of financing brings the company's total private funding announced to approximately $96 million. The newly attracted funds will be used, among other things to "attract talent," the firm says.
MontaVista was started as a purely embedded Linux company back in 1999. It currently employs about 200 persons and counts large embedded computing vendor Wind River Systems as a competitor in the Linux device software market. MontaVista offers three different Linux editions -- MobiLinux, Carrier Grade and Professional.
The key for MontaVista will be how well it can stabilize after replacing founder and ex-CEO James Ready with Thomas Kelly in June 2006, with Ready assuming the role of CTO for the meantime. They've got some stiff competition in the form of Wind River Systems and will have to buckle down and sharply execute their strategy surrounding their Eclipse-based DevRocket development tools. I think they're on the right track by pursuing an open beta program for the toolset, as the embedded market is ripe for an integrated set of Linux development tools.
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