Spanning Cloud Apps has raised $6 million, in part from The Foundry Group but primarily from an undisclosed strategic investor. One thing is for sure, Google is not the one investing. That is if Spanning CEO and Founder Charlie Wood was speaking the truth at SXSW when I asked him if he’d accept an investment from the search giant. The new round brings the total capital raised to date to $9 million.
The Spanning service provides enterprise-class data protection for Google Apps, which includes Gmail, Drive, Sites, Calendars and Contacts.
Spanning’s strength is in its capability to restore data as it had appeared in Google Apps. The service helps IT administrators monitor the health of Google Apps with a stylish interface that shows the status of a company’s Google Apps system, including problems, errors, possible causes and suggested fixes. Day-by-day reports are available, too.
When I talked with Wood, the conversation turned to Backupify, a major competitor that took an investment from Symantec. Immediately after the announcement, Symantec competitors started calling, asking about investing.
In our conversation, Wood said there is an invisible wall between Google and Spanning that has to be respected to guarantee trust with customers. Data is often backed up with third-party services in order to guarantee the information is independently available.
I contacted Spanning about what Wood said at SXSW. A company spokesperson said the agreement does not allow for the investor’s name to be disclosed.