OpenStack Summit November 2014 Paris

Well over a $100 million of venture and corporate capital has been poured into the OpenStack start-ups. Sounds like a lot, right? But compare that to adjacent open source segments such as Hadoop and Big Data, where start-ups close hundreds of millions in a single round and the number is laughable. So what should we all expect going forward? Is OpenStack still in the early days of its VC hype-cycles and should we expect OpenStack start-ups commanding billion dollar valuations and capital raises in 100M+ range? Or have we crossed the top of the hype, with industry now moving into the consolidation phase? See these and many other questions discussed between lively panel of VCs, who have all placed their bets on the OpenStack industry.

Mirantis just raised a $100 million Series B round, one of the largest Series B ever, and by far the largest in OpenStack. Backed by Insight Venture Partners, August Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Intel Capital, Ericsson, Dell and Red Hat, Mirantis emerged as the strongest pure play OpenStack company. So what worked and what didn't for both the investors and Mirantis? What's the right scenario to consider corporate investment vs traditional VC? Does the company regret taking money from it's #1 competitor - Red Hat? Hear answers to all of these questions in a fireside chat between Heidi Bretz and Adrian Ionel, Mirantis CEO, who was on the forefront of Mirantis' fundraising process.

Participants: 

• Adrian Ionel, CEO, Mirantis  






• Heidi Bretz, OpenStack Foundation