Business

£2.1m funding boost for Cloudsmith in seed investment round

Cloudsmith personnel (from left) Paddy Carey (senior staff engineer), Alan Carson (chief executive), Peter Lorimer (chief commercial officer), Lee Skillen (chief technical officer) and Kimberly Neill (intern)
Cloudsmith personnel (from left) Paddy Carey (senior staff engineer), Alan Carson (chief executive), Peter Lorimer (chief commercial officer), Lee Skillen (chief technical officer) and Kimberly Neill (intern)

A BELFAST-based technology firm has closed an equity investment round of £2.1 million - one of the largest seed funding boosts for any start-up in the north.

Cloudsmith, founded in 2013, has developed a potentially world-first artifact repository and caching platform that provides secure digital storage for software assets under development.

The solution helps simplify, secure and accelerate software development and delivery pipelines.

The funding round was led by Frontline Ventures and co-investors MMC Ventures, and locally by Techstart Ventures through its Invest NI fund Techstart.

Cloudsmith’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) offers an advanced logistics platform for software developers, operators and vendors, who need to secure, manage and accelerate their product development and distribution. It distributes millions of artifacts on behalf of its global customer base.

The firm's chief executive Alan Carson said: “We believe that the concept of provenance will play a defining role in the future of software security and quality.

“All companies need end-to-end visibility and control of the assets in their software pipelines. It’s important to have the support of Frontline and MMC as we enter this critical stage in Cloudsmith’s growth.”

Steve Collins, partner at Frontline Ventures, said: “The guys are building what is in effect a foundational element for the next stage in the evolution of software development and distribution. Protecting developers and businesses from the chaos of public software will be a game changer.”

Hal Wilson, partner at Techstart Ventures, added: “This investment is a clear vote of confidence in the Cloudsmith team and their ability to execute.”