
What does this mean for Elastifile?
Ah the dreaded down round of funding...ended up being less than half of the previous round.
Elastifile, an Israeli startup developing a distributed file system for hybrid clouds, has picked up $16m in a funding round led by Western Digital Capital. The other contributors are also heavyweights – Battery Ventures, CE Ventures, Cisco Investments, Dell Technologies, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Total funding is said …
A down round isn't, as you seem to believe, a funding round that raises less money than a previous round but a funding round that raises money at a lower VALUATION.
This is a strategic investment from WD, more than a fundraise by Elastifile because they needed the money. As long as WD paid the same, or more, for each 1% of equity as the investors in the last round it's not a down round.
To make the math easy if the $35million last round bought 35% of the company and the $16 million from WD 16% of the company that would be the same valuation if it bought 12% an up round.