CloudSphere = HyperGrid + iQuate

CloudSphere, a new arrival in the cloud management space, is the result of multiple iterations of GridStore with additions of other companies in the meantime.

GridStore was founded in 2009 and raised $44.5M in 4 rounds to provide a scale-out NAS for SMB based on Windows OS. It was the original mission and pretty interesting project in fact. Time was tough as the company never found its landing zone.

Around 2015 the team tried a new positioning in the HyperConverged Infrastructure (HCI) segment as the new hot and hope zone for many vendors. But it never took off. The product, named HCA for HyperConverged Appliance, combines Windows 2012 R2, the GridStore vController, some hardware and run as a VM in Microsoft Hyper-V.

But again, this strategy hit a wall and the project evolved, once again into a new direction.
In May 2016, HyperGrid was born as the result of the merger between GrisStore and DCHQ. In fact, DCHQ was absorbed by GridStore in that process. HyperGrid changed again to offer HCI-as-a-Service with its product named HyperCloud.

...and the story continued again, "HyperConfidentiality" instead of HyperConverged and guess what, a few weeks ago, a new merger happened.

CloudSphere was born as the result of the addition of HyperGrid and iQuate. What a story...

By the way, Manoj Nair, HyperGrid founder, is now general manager of Metallic, the SaaS backup business of Commvault. He left HyperGrid at the birth of CloudSphere but he's still a board member.

This journey reminds me an other long story with many iterations... Overland.