SandForce
 |
|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Solid State Storage |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Founder | Alex Naqvi and Rado Danilak |
| Headquarters | Milpitas, California, U.S. |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
|
Key people
|
Michael Raam, CEO |
| Products | Solid-state drive controller |
|
Number of employees
|
190 |
| Parent | Seagate Technology |
| Website | www |
SandForce was an American fabless semiconductor company based in Milpitas, California, that designed and manufactured flash memory controllers for solid-state drives (SSDs). On January 4, 2012, SandForce was acquired by LSI Corporation and became the Flash Components Division of LSI. LSI was subsequently acquired by Avago Technologies on May 6, 2014 and on the 29th of that same month Seagate Technology announced its intention to buy LSI's Flash Components Division.
SandForce was founded in 2006 by Alex Naqvi and Rado Danilak. In April 2009, they announced their entrance into the solid-state drive market.
SandForce did not sell complete solid-state drives, but rather flash memory controllers, called SSD processors, to partners who then built and sold complete SSDs to manufacturers, corporations, and end-users. However, another division of LSI used the SandForce SSD processor in the LSI Nytro PCIe product line. Zsolt Kerekes, an SSD Market Analyst and publisher of StorageSearch.com, said in 2011 that SandForce was the best-known maker of SSD controllers.
Alex Naqvi and Rado Danilak had experience from companies including Marvell, Intel Corporation, NVIDIA, Toshiba, and SanDisk when they started SandForce. At the end of 2009, it had approximately 100 employees.
SandForce was initially financed by private equity firms Storm Ventures, Doll Capital Management, and unnamed computer data storage firms. By April 2009, SandForce had taken in more than $20 million in two venture rounds. In November that same year they closed a series C funding round of $21 million led by TransLink Capital and included LSI, ADATA, and others, including Seagate Technology. Finally in October 2010, SandForce closed a series D round of $25 million led by Canaan Partners and included the existing investors.
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Wikipedia