Application development innovator accelerates product development, expands management team.
Palo Alto, Calif. June 24, 2010 — Sencha, the leader in enterprise JavaScript frameworks, and with more than 1 million developers using its products, has completed a $14 million Series A round of funding. Sequoia Capital led the round, with the participation of Radar Partners. Sencha will use the funds to further the development and distribution of its next-generation, HTML5-based products. Abraham Elias, CEO of Sencha, also announced that the company has expanded its management team and added two investors to its board of directors: Stratton Sclavos of Radar Partners and Jim Goetz of Sequoia.
Application architectures for both enterprises and content providers are on the cusp of a major shift as dynamic browser technologies like HTML5 collide with a wave of powerful mobile devices in tablet and phone formats. New development approaches and technologies are emerging to meet the needs of this burgeoning software generation.
“Sencha fundamentally changes application development for the mobile web, and how people interact with those applications. Abe and his team have built an extraordinary platform, first for the desktop, and now for the mobile web,” said Jim Goetz, partner at Sequoia Capital and Sencha board member. “My partners are proud to give Sencha our full support.”
“The mobile landscape is going through a profound restructuring, with software, hardware and service providers all adapting their strategies for the next wave of mobile applications,” said Stratton Sclavos, partner at Radar Partners. “We think Sencha has established a unique position in the market with its HTML5 application framework for mobile devices.”
“Jim and Stratton are world-class business partners who will help turbo-charge our growth,” said Abe Elias, CEO and founder of Sencha. “They have an impressive track record in the mobile sector, and this round of funding enables Sencha to accelerate on numerous fronts, especially on new product development.”
Sencha was founded in 2007 as Ext JS, an Ajax framework provider, and has quickly grown to be a major provider of open-source JavaScript technology used by leading enterprises and technology companies. Best Buy, Juniper Networks and Time Warner Cable are just a few of the companies that use Sencha technologies to power their business applications. This month, Sencha added the jQTouch and Raphaël projects to its open-source software portfolio, and announced the public beta of Sencha Touch(tm), the industry’s first HTML5-based mobile application development framework.
Three new executives also join the Sencha team: Ted Driscoll, VP sales; Jeff Hartley, VP of professional services and training; and Michael Mullany, VP of products and marketing. “I’m very happy to add to our team three executives with track records of successfully building open-source businesses on developer-focused products,” said Elias.
Sencha Expands Management Team
Ted Driscoll, Vice President Worldwide Sales
With more than 20 years of experience in software development and infrastructure sales, Ted most recently spent four years at Nokia Qt Development Frameworks division. While there, he led the worldwide sales organization for more than two years, after serving in other sales management positions at his previous company, Trolltech (acquired by Nokia in 2008). Prior to Trolltech, he was western regional director of sales and service for Agitar. Earlier in his career, Ted spent eight years in various sales roles at Rational Software (now IBM). Ted holds a degree in computer science from North Adams State College.
Jeff Hartley, Vice President of Services and Training
Jeff’s broad-based executive management experience has been built from roles at both large and small high-tech companies during his 20-year career. He most recently served as vice president of products and marketing for Terracotta, a leading enterprise data virtualization company. In earlier roles, he managed enterprise pricing, product management, and services functions at PricewaterhouseCoopers, E.pihany, Loudcloud, and EDS. Jeff began his professional career as an armored cavalry officer in the United States Army. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BS in engineering and mathematics from the United States Military Academy.
Michael Mullany, Vice President of Products and Marketing
Michael Mullany joins Sencha with more than 12 years’ experience in product marketing and management for Silicon Valley software companies. Prior to Sencha, he held product and executive marketing roles at influential Silicon Valley startups Netscape, Loudcloud and VMware. At virtualization leader VMware, he served as the vice president of worldwide marketing during its break-out into server computing. Most recently, he was VP marketing & products for startups Engine Yard and Peakstream, the latter acquired by Google during his tenure. Michael has an extensive track record in defining and executing business and product strategy as well as creating high-impact, go-to-market plans for software infrastructure companies. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA in economics from Harvard College.
