Glasshouse Technologies, an information technology consultancy specializing in data storage, just announced the withdrawal of its initial public offering due to poor market conditions — making it the third venture-backed startup to cancel an IPO in 2009. The Framingham, Mass. company originally filed in December 2007 and expected to rake in $100 million in the sale. It says it plans to refile once the economy rebounds.
Glasshouse provided management and customer support to companies integrating cloud environments, data centers and other major storage needs. It has raised more than $50 million over four rounds of financing from Sigma Partners, Grandbanks Capital, Kodiak Venture Partners, Globespan Capital Partners, Montagu Newhall Associates and Paladin Group. In the past, it has also taken funds from Cisco Systems and Dell.
The company has pursued a rather aggressive acquisition strategy in recent years. As recently as January, it bought data security consulting firm CSSG. And immediately before filing to go public, it gobbled up virtual server consultancy RapidApp, data center services company Data Center Moves International and two Israeli companies — MBI Advanced Computer Systems and Integrity Systems.
The other two companies to withdraw their IPOs were metal stockpiler Indium Resources and on-demand charter plane provider Pogo Jet. Both also cited the poor economy.
Glasshouse competes directly with Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, EMC and IBM, according to VentureWire.
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