Israeli startup XtremIO was widely regarded as one of the world’s pioneers in Flash storage.

Background:

Battery General Partner Itzik Parnafes met the founders while the company was still in its deep R&D mode. The founders, a prestigious group of Israeli high-tech veterans, appreciated Parnafes’ technical background in computer science and math, and Battery’s ability to help think through meaningful use cases for the nascent technology. This ability to dig deep into the technology helped Battery to secure the lead investment position for the company’s series B financing in 2011. In fact, much of the potential customer use cases that Battery researched during its diligence for the investment helped to set the product roadmap for the company.

Outcome:

EMC was early to recognize the importance of XtremIO’s Flash storage architecture and acquired the pre-product company in 2012, shortly after Battery’s investment. Speaking to the embryonic stage of the company, it took EMC another two years to develop and ship its first product based on the acquisition—though XtremIO reached $1 billion in sales the first year EMC brought its products to market*.

*Source: https://www.storagereview.com/news/xtremio-achieves-1-billion-in-bookings-in-just-588-days