Khosla enters virtualization space; invests in Moka5

Moka5 is the latest start-up to target the desktop “virtualization” business, and it has credibility.

We’ve mentioned the company before (scroll down), when it was called SkyBlue, but now the company has left secrecy mode.

The Redwood City company is targeting the PC market, essentially letting PCs act as if they are running any operating system or configuration, which the company says can help with things like security. We mentioned the “virtualization” craze earlier (scroll down).

It is the latest company backed by Vinod Khosla, the respected venture capitalist who left big-name Kleiner Perkins to invest on his own, via his fund Khosla Ventures. The company has raised a little more than $3 million, mainly from Khosla.

According to the company’s statement yesterday, it is a spin-off from Stanford University’s Computer Science Department, and is led by Monica Lam, Professor of Computer Science, who is taking a leave from Stanford for now. Lam’s research group was the first to use machine virtualization to address the problems of managing and securing computer desktops, according to the company’s statement yesterday.

The vision behind our moka5 “LivePC” technology is to allow enterprises and consumers to work on whatever operating system, with whatever applications, on whatever device they want in a completely maintained, up-to-date and secure environment (that’s the part that makes it “live.”)

moka5 will be releasing beta product within 90 days.