ACADEMIA

OSLO, NORWAY -- Scali AS is pleased to announce that it has closed the second round of its Series B funding round. New investor Four Seasons Venture III led the round. Intel Capital joined as an investor and existing investors Kongsberg Gruppen and SND Invest also participated. Financial details were not disclosed. The Linux-based Scali software is designed to enable companies to create supercomputing capabilities from standard servers, rather than to purchase dedicated large machines. Scali clustering technology can reduce the cost of computing by more than a factor of ten for major high performance applications. Scali has a blue chip customer reference list and proven technology in use with customers in Europe and North America. Current customers include Daimler Chrysler, BMW, deCode Genetics, Lockheed Martin, Norsk Hydro, US Naval Air, PGS and Rolls Royce. The funds will be dedicated to further strengthen the underlying technology platform of Scali, to boost sales and marketing efforts and for general corporate development purposes. The market for clustering solutions is set to grow significantly over the next 3-5 years, as the monolithic and expensive installations in use today are being replaced by cluster solutions. The cluster market is forecasted by IDC to have a compounded annual growth rate exceeding 30% in the period 2000 - 2005, from a total of $ 613 million in 2000 to $ 2.4 billion in 2005. Sverre Kjenne, Chairman of the Board of Scali said, “We are delighted with the completion of this funding round and welcome Intel Capital as an investor. We look forward to continue developing and marketing next generation clustering software technology to further strengthen Scali's position in the exciting and fast growing global market of high performance clustering software." "Scali, has an outstanding and dedicated team that have been pioneers in the development of high performance clustering for more than eight years,” said Hans Olav Torsen, Scali’s Chief Executive Officer. “Today's funding announcement is a step in helping our technology to become a foundation as the commercial market for clustering solutions continues its rapid expansion." Lars Östmarck, Nordic Regional Manager, Intel Corporation said, "Intel Capital invested in Scali to address the market which wants to move Supercomputer functions to affordable, high performance clusters of servers and workstations based on Intel technology."