Cesanta secures seed funding for expansion

Fledgling Irish internet software company Cesanta has secured seed funding for expansion from AIB, Enterprise Ireland, San Francisco-based tech investor Kevin Hartz, and a consortium of Irish investors.

The funding will be used to hire additional staff to expand its offering in the burgeoning Internet of Things market. It currently has fewer than 10 staff and plans to double this within 12 months.

Based in Dublin, Cesanta was founded by Ukrainian national Sergey Lyubka and Anatoly Lebedev from Russia, who met while working at Google's headquarters here.

Mr Lebedev’s said the company’s “mission” was to create the technology to bring all devices online. “We operate in the Internet of Things space and develop and market embedable software specially designed to enable network communication between devices or appliances.”

Cesanta has not revealed details of the investment. However, documents filed with the Companies Office show that the AIB accelerator fund has taken 10,000 preferred ordinary shares in Cesanta, while Mr Hartz has 1,250 such shares. Their combined investment for these shares was €450,000.

Private investors

Separately, six private investors have invested €105,000 for 2,625 shares. It is not clear how much Enterprise Ireland has paid for its investment.

Job vacancies listed on Cesanta’s website promote joining the company as a “great opportunity to help build the next $1 billion business”.

"You don't leave Google to do something small," Mr Lebedev told The Irish Times.

On how long it might take to become a $1 billion company, Mr Lebedev said: “It will take us some time. We are living in year and a half cycles [to grow the business]. The current milestone is to close the seed round and build the team. We are looking to get a team of ‘A’ players.”