Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Interview with Steve Brodie, illumita
Our interview this morning is with Steve Brodie of illumita (www.illumita.com), which recently announced a Series A venture capital round from Madrona Venture Group, Ignition Partners, Bezos Expeditions, and the Washington Research Foundation. Although the firm is still mum about its plans for the virtualization market, Brodie spoke to Northwest Innovation to give us some more insight into the company and the funding.
Congrats on the funding. we know you're still in stealth mode, however we'd love to hear the story about the firm's roots at UW--how did the company start, and how long have you been working on your products?
Steve Brodie: We started illumita in 2006. A group of scientists from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington – Brian Bershad, Hank Levy and David Richardson – had been performing some research and the illumita technology stemmed from the results of their research. At this point, Bershad and Levy are active board members and Richardson (the graduate student that began the research) now serves as illumita’s chief scientist. Bershad served as the CEO of illumita during his sabbatical and is now going back to his role as a professor at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. Hank Levy is Chair of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington.
Steve Brodie: illumita’s solution is focused on virtualization over the internet. A recent report from IDC predicts that server virtualization will become a $20 billion industry by 2010. The report also indicates $17 billion of that money will be spent on the virtualization solutions and services segment that illumita is targeting, on top of the $3.1 billion for virtualization software licenses. These trends translate into a lot of opportunity for illumita and our solution.
What's the background of the team, and who is involved with the company?
Steve Brodie: I am the president of illumita and I have more than 15 years of enterprise software development and enterprise IT consulting experience. My most recent experience was at Hewlett Packard/Mercury Interactive and IBM/Rational.
Jonathan Weeks will serve as the VP of engineering and is also joining illumita from Hewlett Packard/Mercury Interactive. Prior to that Jonathan held senior managerial and technical positions at Performant, Disney and AT&T Wireless (McCaw Cellular).
Brad Silverberg, one of our board members, is a founding partner at Ignition and former senior executive at Microsoft.
Sunny Gupta, another board member, is an experienced enterprise software executive. He has executive experience at Opsware, Mercury Interactive and Rational and was founder and CEO of iConclude.
Matt McIlwain, who will also be joining our board, is the managing director at Madrona Venture Group. McIlwain focuses on a broad range of software-driven companies. Previously, he was vice president of business process for the Genuine Parts Company, a Fortune 250 company. He also was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, concentrating on strategy and marketing in technology and financial service industries and worked in investment banking at CSFB.
How difficult was it to find funding for the company, and how long was the fundraising process?
Steve Brodie: It was not hard for us to find supporters, since our solution is based on technology from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. It is a very highly respected department and investors were receptive to the idea of spinning off a company from research done at the University. Madrona Venture Group and Ignition Partners, just two of our series A investors, are coming together for the first time on a series A investment – a tremendous vote of confidence for illumita. It’s exciting to be backed by such dependable partners while working on this thrilling new development in the Enterprise IT space.
Finally, when do you think you'll be talking more about your products and technology?
Steve Brodie: We don’t have a timeline yet for announcing products or roadmap information. In the mean time, people can check our Web site for additional information and announcements.