ServiceMesh Raises $15M in Funding for its Cloud Platform

Enterprise cloud platform provider ServiceMesh has raised $15 million in a round of funding led by Ignition Partners. The money will go toward increasing ServiceMesh’s global market penetration and partnerships, while Ignition gets a spot on the board in the form of Microsoft and Citrix veteran Frank Artale.

I’ll let Artale explain ServiceMesh’s value proposition, in this excerpt from his prepared statement:

“Through ServiceMesh, we believe the promise of enterprise-scale cloud computing is finally becoming a reality. To successfully derive business value from these technologies, organizations must be able to provide flexible access to cloud environments under a unified SLA, governance and compliance framework. […] We see an immediate market opportunity for ServiceMesh in businesses of all sizes, including the largest enterprises and governments, because ServiceMesh is the only way to ensure that these organizations achieve significant business value from their cloud investment.”

In plainer terms, the flagship ServiceMesh Agility Platform offers quick time-to-value and a management and self-service framework built around its portfolio of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS solutions, according to the press release. While precise details are scant, it sounds as though ServiceMesh is planning on using this money to boost its exposure in the cloud services market and the channel at large.

For Ignition Partners’ part, this is just furthering a cloud agenda that’s included investments in cloud storage vendor StorSimple, .NET PaaS vendor Apprenda and cloud automation vendor PaaS SkyTap. So, good for ServiceMesh, no doubt. But I’m wondering if Ignition Partners isn’t expecting to find itself the secret venture capital power behind the cloud services market. And if so, what’s the master plan?