Seattle-based startup Expanso has raised $7.5 million in seed funding to accelerate development of its innovative edge data infrastructure software. The oversubscribed round was co-led by top VCs General Catalyst and Hetz Ventures, with participation from Array Ventures, Protocol Labs, and several angel investors.
The Expanso platform enables companies to efficiently process and analyze data where it originates, rather than sending it to distant centralized data centers. This distributed approach provides greater speed, security, and scalability for modern data-driven businesses.
“We are thrilled to have the backing of such high-caliber investors who share our vision for the future of edge computing,” said Expanso CEO and co-founder David Aronchick. “These funds will help us scale our team and accelerate bringing our secure, lightweight edge software to enterprises across industries.”
The Power Behind the Edge
The core technology powering Expanso is Bacalhau, an open source software framework optimized for edge environments. Aronchick and founding CTO Walid Baruni originally created Bacalhau at Google to simplify machine learning deployments.
“Bacalhau enables us to distribute data infrastructure at unmatched speeds while maintaining strong security and DevOps agility,” Baruni explained. “We have spent years honing this software through real-world deployments, and now Expanso is productizing it for full enterprise utilization.”
According to Expanso investor Quentin Clark of General Catalyst, Bacalhau provides unique advantages over alternative solutions. “Expanso brings compute to the data, enabling businesses to operate securely at their operational pace and maximize the utility of valuable data,” he said.
As more companies adopt IoT devices, automation, AI/ML, and real-time analytics, handling exponentially growing data is becoming both a necessity and challenge. Expanso tackles this problem through its edge-first approach.
The Expanso Edge Platform
The Expanso platform is comprised of three main components: Flow, Trust, and Control. Together, these capabilities provide comprehensive edge data infrastructure with cloud-like agility.
Flow enables real-time data collection, enrichment, and transformation at edge locations like retail stores, factories, or bases. Companies can leverage Expanso to instantly process and analyze data where it originates for faster insights.
Trust provides enterprise-grade security engineered specifically for heterogeneous edge environments. All communications and data transfers are encrypted using the latest standards. Granular access policies and governance controls help maintain regulatory compliance across regions.
Finally, Control delivers centralized orchestration and observability across far-flung edge infrastructure. Teams can easily deploy Bacalhau to any edge node while maintaining oversight through Expanso’s management console. Advanced analytics offer actionable intelligence into operations.
Early customer traction has been highly positive, with Expanso seeing strong demand across retail, manufacturing, defense, and other data-driven sectors.
Team Combining Tech Prowess and Domain Expertise
Expanso was founded in 2021 by technology veterans with deep infrastructure experience.
CEO David Aronchick previously led teams at Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google working on foundational platforms like Kubernetes. Most notably, he founded the Kubeflow open source project at Google to simplify machine learning deployments. This background has informed Expanso’s focus on developer experience and abstracting complexity.
CTO Walid Baruni brings over 20 years of distributed systems expertise, including senior engineering roles at Amazon and 5+ years at Google working on Kubernetes and Bacalhau. He leads Expanso’s cutting-edge technology development powered by open source collaboration.
The founding team combines their software chops with advisors bringing critical industry perspective. Jim McGowan, former VP & GM of Manufacturing Industry Solutions at SAP, helps guide Expanso’s solutions for industrial use cases.
Retail digital transformation expert Tanya Doody, previous stores engineering leader at Starbucks, advises how Expanso can meet brick-and-mortar needs.
Rapid Growth Trajectory
This new funding positions Expanso to fuel go-to-market expansion and continued edge infrastructure innovation. Bacalhau will remain open source, allowing integration with partner solutions.
Several new hires are planned across engineering, sales, solutions architecture, and developer advocacy. The Seattle-area office will serve as Expanso’s headquarters with remote talent hired globally.
Initial target industries include retail, manufacturing, oil and gas, smart spaces, and defense. The platform’s versatility can extend to transportation, healthcare, financial services, and more over time.
Thanks to its strong founding team and backing by top investors, Expanso has aggressive plans to become a leader in enabling edge intelligence through its disruptive data platform. Data-driven companies will benefit from Expanso powering their edge transformation initiatives today and into the future.