Cloud storage is pricey (particularly on this economic system), however many firms typically over-provision, chopping their full return on funding. Lucidity was created to assist them handle block storage extra effectively with a set of automated instruments. The startup introduced immediately that’s has raised $5.3 million in seed funding. The spherical was led by AlphaWave Investments with participation from Beenext, Blume, Daring Capital and NuVentures.
The corporate beforehand raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding final yr led by Beenext.
Lucidity says its “NoOps” (or fully automated) orchestration layer could make an organization’s cloud block storage 70% cheaper and 10x quicker, with none code modifications. It handles storage provisioning whereas eliminating potential downtime throughout surge net site visitors.
Lucidity was based final yr by Vatsal Rastogi, whose former roles embrace working as a developer at Microsoft Azure and with Indian on-line meals supply unicorn Swiggy, and Nitin Bhaduria, former head of gross sales at Tracxn.
Bhaduria says that many firms flocked to the cloud within the wake of the pandemic, however used a “elevate and shift” method, which means that they moved information and apps with out modifications. Whereas this was the quickest method, it resulted in over-provisioning and different points that damage ROI. It additionally made it more durable for firms that had beforehand saved information in on-premise servers to transition to a cloud-first method.
Lucidity’s prospects are usually enterprise and higher mid-market firms that “cloud transient,” or within the means of shifting their information from on-premise servers to the cloud.
Lucidity founders Vatsal Rastogi and Nitin Bhaduria
However firms typically find yourself coping with new challenges after the transfer. For instance, many over-provision their cloud storage within the hopes of guaranteeing zero downtime, however nonetheless face storage outages two to 3 occasions a yr, plus a scarcity of skilled cloud professionals.
“Consider it as a home transfer to a spot with extra inexpensive hire. Nevertheless, when you shift, you notice your furnishings dimensions are usually not specified in your new house,” Bhaduria stated. “The neighborhood college schedule is completely different and also you face an extended commute to work. In different phrases, to accrue the advantages of extra inexpensive hire, you’ll have to put in some sizable investments and time to redecorate your own home and dynamically plan your every day schedule and commute.”
He added that Lucidity’s software program may be onboarded in quarter-hour and DevOps groups by no means should configure storage once more.
Bhaduria gave a pair use instances that present how Lucidity works. The primary is a retail and meals distribution Fortune 500 firm that moved to the cloud 4 years in the past, however didn’t get the ROI promised by public cloud suppliers. Consequently, its cloud storage was over-provisioned, however nonetheless skilled downtime throughout net site visitors surges.
Lucidity’s orchestration layer found that 80% of its cloud storage was over-provisioned and used as a buffer. The corporate then used Lucidity’s Auto-scaler device to cut back this buffer to twenty%, which lower their storage prices by nearly 77%. Lucidity’s dynamic provisioning and capability administration options additionally helped forestall downtime throughout surge site visitors.
The second instance is a Collection C-stage buyer information administration and information intelligence startup that wanted to determine the correct measurement to provision their storage whereas stopping service outages because of full cloud storage, however with out utilizing resource-intensive DevOps to repeatedly handle its storage measurement primarily based on altering workloads. Lucidity was capable of automate most of those duties with its dynamic storage provisioning characteristic, and its Auto-scaler helps the corporate preserve a utilization of 75% to 80%.
Lucidity has a “pay-as-you-use” monetization mannequin, which suggests prospects pay a flat administration price for the information that its software program manages. It’s at the moment at early income stage and its purchasers embrace greater than 10 enterprises at completely different phases of the product deployment lifecycle.
The startup’s new funding shall be used on its go-to-market technique in the US, the place Bhaduria stated it’s seeing important traction. Lucidity has places of work in New York, Bangalore and Abu Dhabi.
In a press release, Beenext managing accomplice Dirk van Quaquebeke stated, “Lucidity positions themselves on the attention-grabbing intersection of what I name cloud transient the place massive enterprises transition from on-prem to cloud and there’s a lot of slack to be captured when it comes to worth. Lucidity is constructing one thing that can have a really robust GTM slot in a market that’s extraordinarily massive and world in nature.”
