Storage startup burns through $45 million in 6 months, shuts down
Sunnyvale-based storage startup Agami called an all hands at 11 AM, Monday, August 4. "I thought we were getting bought out,'' one sales rep told the Mercury News. Instead, CEO David Stiles told his employees that the company was shutting down and that everyone had to clear out by 1 PM. "Basically we all felt betrayed,'' another employee told the Mercury News. They had reason to be surprised. Agami only closed its third round of funding in February, after raising $45 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins.Employees — now without health insurance or expenses repaid — got an email address for pay requests, but so far employees say correspondence has been all one-sided. Asked why the company so suddenly folded, founder Kumar Sreekanti said: "Agami's board has decided to shut the company down as the efforts to raise further capital didn't materialize in time." Dan Warmenhoven, CEO of NetApp, doesn't buy the excuse — "You don't raise $45 million and then get shut down. That doesn't make sense," — and neither do we. Sreekanti has worked as the CEO of a Kleiner Perkins-backed startup before, so our guess is Sreekanti is keeping quiet trying to be a "team player" for the boys on Sand Hill road in order to stay on their roster of cooperative executives ready to work on — and sometimes unceremoniously shut down — future ventures.