DATA STORAGE specialist MPStor has raised €700,000 in funding to help bring products to market.

The funding round was led by the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Fund and also included investment from Enterprise Ireland.

Cork-based MPStor designs and supplies data storage management and cloud service provider solutions. It targets markets such as cloud computing, video, healthcare and high-performance computing.

Managing director Tony McEnroe said the money would be used to help support the launch of its new products.

“The company has been developing technology over the pastthree to four years, and now has a range of products to bring to market,” he said. “We launched a number of products at the start of the year.

“Our summer product launch will be more focused on cloud computing.”

The funding was announced by Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation Sean Sherlock.

“Access to funding for Irish companies is a key priority of the Government and, through Enterprise Ireland, we have made a number of investments in MPStor over the past number of years,” he said. “These supports are essential for SMEs competing in a fast-growing, high-tech, global marketplace.”

A key differentiator for MPStor is that it uses an open platform for its cloud computing solution, which is aimed at both public services and private cloud functions.

“If you use a proprietary cloud platform and put your data on it, if the company goes bankrupt, you may have difficulty getting your data and decrypting it,” said Mr McEnroe.

The interface used by MPStor, however, is compatible with other open cloud computing platforms.