Voxel, a hybrid cloud hosting and managed services provider, announced Friday the close of a $5.5 million Series A round led by Seaport Capital. The new funds will help Voxel secure its footprint in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) industry.

Founded in 1999 as a Linux hosting business, Voxel now offers a suite of on-demand hosting services, including a hybrid cloud hosting service that allows users to instantly create and deploy new servers in the U.S., Europe, or Asia, and tear them back down just as quickly. 

So what exactly is a "hybrid" cloud solution? 

The company explains that it doesn't force a "cloud-or-nothing" choice on its customers. Users can make their VoxCLOUD server part of the same logical VLAN as their VoxSERVERs and can put their VoxCLOUD servers behind the same firewalls and load balances. The company also claims that the VoxCLOUD server and the VoxSERVER can communicate with each other in the same private backend network. 

"Voxel is an innovative technology and service company in an industry that is seeing tremendous growth," said Jim Collis, Founding Partner of Seaport Capital, in a prepared statement. "With the leading-edge technology platform Voxel has built, we're excited to work with management and provide the growth capital Voxel needs." 

As part of the deal, Jim Collis will be joining Voxel's Board of Directors.

"We're excited to announce the completion of Voxel's first outside capital raise and thrilled to have Seaport Capital as a partner," said Raul Martynek, President and CEO of Voxel, in the company's announcement. "Seaport has extensive experience in the infrastructure services market and their support underscores the success we're seeing in the marketplace with Voxel's services."

The new funds will be used to boost sales and ramp up deployment of the company's automated infrastructure services. 

Image source: Voxel.net