Clustered storage vendor Isilon has completed an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and is looking to invest in strengthening its channel in 2007.

The Seattle-based vendor raised around $108m from the IPO, beating market expectations.

Speaking to CRN, Jay Wampold, senior director of marketing at Isilon, said: “We are going to be investing more money in expanding the business in 2007. We will be using some of the money prudently to expand our engineering, sales and marketing capabilities.

“As a company we are focused on building and supporting a robust and vibrant channel for our clustered storage products and we are very committed to doing that.”

Wampold added that the UK was a very important market to Isilon and would also look to expand its channel further. Last year the vendor launched its first EMEA partner programme and opened offices in London, Paris and Munich to increase its global presence (CRN, 7 July).

“Our clustered storage market is rapidly growing and we want to encourage a vibrant ecosystem of channel partners to join our programme,” he said.

David Galton-Fenzi, group sales director at Zycko, Isilon’s main UK distributor, welcomed the IPO.

“We are pleasantly surprised by how well Isilon has done in the UK. I would personally like to see it use some of the money to furnish the channel with more schemes such as financing, training and loan-buy schemes and also invest in more channel facing personnel to help with hand-holding in initial sales.”

Galton-Fenzi added that the firm also needs to broaden its market presence into new verticals.

“Isilon is currently strong in media, but we are keen to get its products taken up in new verticals,” he said.

He added that the vendor was the third in Zycko’s portfolio to complete an IPO, the other two being Riverbed and CommVault.

“The fact that Isilon is the third of our vendors to IPO also helps strengthen our strategy by proving we only deal with the fastest growing vendors in the market,” he said.

Isilon Systems targets Smart EMEA partners