Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Cloud-testing service Soasta helps companies set up tests for their app or web site to see if they can avoid crashes and failures caused by heavy traffic. The company has just patented the “cross-cloud grid provisioning” process that makes this testing possible.

The company uses more than 500,000 servers across the globe to simulate hundreds of thousands of users accessing a single app or website.

It’s ideal for extreme test-cases where people suddenly flood a website. For instance, prior to the London Olympic Games, Soasta helped staff prepare the official website for millions of people attempting to buy tickets.

Prior to the invention of cross-cloud grid provisioning technology, a lack of servers constrained this kind of performance testing. Setting up servers in the cloud would take hours. However, Soasta can tap into servers in 60 global locations running on 20 providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Rackspace. Setup takes place in a matter of minutes — even for the largest tests.

“This kind of cloud testing is now done daily by 400 of our corporate customers,” CEO Tom Lounibos told VentureBeat in an interview. When asked about whether the unique patent will make the company more attractive to potential acquirers, Lounibos said Soasta will likely go public.

Analysts agree that the availability of this kind of testing is an important step for the industry as a whole and boosts customer’s faith in the cloud. “Cloud computing depends on rapid deployment and on-demand access,” said Melinda Ballou, program director for technology research firm IDC in a statement. This technology can now provide “immediate access to those load servers across environments to help with the problems users face when trying to utilize different cloud platforms for testing.”

Soasta is often billed as Mercury Interactive for the cloud. Mercury is a testing services provider that HP bought for $4.5 billion. It was formed in 2008 and is currently used by 12 out of the 24 top online retailers. Its most high-profile customers include NASA, Microsoft, and Netflix.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Soasta, a cloud-based performance testing services company, has secured $12 million in its fourth round of funding. This series D round was led by Jeff Webber through The Entrepreneurs’ Fund III and existing investors Canaan Partners, Formative Ventures, and Pelion Venture Partners.

The five year old company specializes in performance-testing websites through the cloud with its recently-patented CloudTest visual test creation environment. Soasta can test many functions of a website, including specific front-end features, such as account logins and page loads. Soasta then puts together a report for your website that alerts your company to any issues that may exist. Its services range from a free software download, released this year, to complete turnkey testing services. Soasta’s clients include big names like American Girl, Hallmark, Inuit, and Microsoft.

“The explosion of mobile apps has been beyond our expectation,” says Soasta CEO Tom Lounibos (pictured above) in an interview. “We are in the business of helping companies and individuals focus on the performance of their web apps and mobile apps moving forward.”

The new round of funding will be used to grow the company overseas, as Lounibos explains, “We will be using [the funding] for expansion of many things—mainly geographical expansion into China. There is a market there as more and more people are beginning to use mobile technology. China is a big market for us, [as is] India and Brazil.”

Soasta is a privately held company that was founded in 2006 and operates out of Mountain View, CA. This year the company grew to include over 100 employees and over 3,000 clients who use their services. Over the last five years, Soasta has been funded by UV Partners, Canaan Partners, Formative Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners, and The Entrepreneurs’ Fund. This latest round brings its total funding to $32 million.