StarWind Software's software-defined storage solutions for Microsoft (MSFT) Hyper-V virtualization platforms have earned a significant endorsement with the company's announcement this week of a $3.25 million Series B round of financing.

The funding round, announced April 15, was led by Almaz Capital, with ABRT Venture and AVentures Capital also participating. The deal brings Alexander (Sasha) Galitsky of Almaz to the StarWind board.

The company and its funding partners are hoping to capitalize on what they see as a rich opportunity at the confluence of Hyper-V virtualization and software-defined storage. "Microsoft’s Hyper-V is emerging as the leading virtualization platform for SMBs," StarWind said in a statement, and StarWind's forthcoming software release will be the first product to offer software-defined storage for Hyper-V virtualization hypervisor hosts, according to the company.

In Galitsky's analysis, "Sales of StarWind VSAN for Hyper-V have been growing over 100 percent a year, because the product is simpler to use, cheaper to deploy and provides compelling value for companies large and small by eliminating the need for hardware components and specialized administrative support. This is a large business opportunity where the founders are uniquely equipped to address what has until now been a prohibitive problem, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises."

StarWind was founded in 2003 and now claims 30,000 customers worldwide. In addition to Hyper-V, the company also supports VMware (VMW) and Xen virtualization environments, with the goal of delivering storage solutions that offer the reliability of hardware-based storage, with the flexibility and cost advantages of software-defined storage.