Quoting the press release:

Invirtus, the leading provider of solutions which optimize and automate virtual machine technology, announced today that it has received first round funding from investors. Founded in 2004, Invirtus counts hundreds of businesses worldwide among its customers, including many Fortune 500 organizations.

"We've already established a significant presence in the Virtual Machine space with our first product, VMOptimizer™," said Tom Edwards, Invirtus CEO. "This investment reinforces the importance of our technology and will allow us to remain focused on customer requirements and the delivery of additional products later this year."

The funding announcement comes on the heels of an accolade received earlier this year when Gartner Group included Invirtus in its "Cool Vendors in Emerging Technologies, 2006" report by Martin Reynolds, et al., Gartner, Inc. (30 March 2006). This early analyst recognition helped Invirtus capture the attention of several successful members of Atlanta's investment community.

Leading this first round investment are Kenneth L. Gavranovic, Bryan W. Adams, Clark Gilder and Thomas M. Lord.

"With organizations like Google and Microsoft investing billions in data centers, managing and optimizing virtual machines becomes increasingly important for reducing their reliance on physical servers," said Gavranovic when asked about his interest in the organization. "Invirtus is really on the cutting edge of this technology and will enable all sorts of new scenarios."

Best known for his role as the founder of Interland, Gavranovic is currently the chief executive officer of SimplySold Real Estate, the nationally franchised real estate brokerage company that he co-founded in 2005. Before leaving Interland, Gavranovic successfully raised more than $100 million in a 2000 public offering and prior venture capital rounds, and successfully negotiated numerous strategic investments from partners including Microsoft, Verizon and VeriSign. With this investment, Gavranovic joins the Invirtus Board of Directors.

Adams is currently managing director of Sullivan Street Capital, a partnership targeting investments in emerging software, information technology and business services companies. Prior to forming Sullivan Street, Adams served as chief financial officer of ITC Holding Company.

Adams has had an active role in numerous successful investments, including Vigo Remittance (acquired by First Data), Powertel (acquired by Deutsche Telecom), Mindspring (merged with EarthLink), ITC^Deltacom (distributed to shareholders at IPO), Knology (distributed to shareholders, subsequent IPO), Headhunter.Net (sold to Tribune Company and Knight Ridder), and Intercall (sold to West Corporation). With this investment, Adams joins the Invirtus Board of Advisors.

"Virtualization will redefine how companies run their enterprise infrastructure. It enables significant improvement in server utilizations rates, which will lower substantially overall server costs," said Adams. "Invirtus provides the solutions needed to greatly reduce the size and increase the speed and performance within the virtualization environment."

Gilder, formerly from Redmond, Washington, spent 13 years at Microsoft where he led ISV evangelism in the CRM space and was a Lead Program Manager for Microsoft Windows 2000, XP and 2003 Server. With his investment, Gilder joins the Invirtus Board of Advisors.

Lord, who possesses more than 20 years industry experience, is a private investor and consultant focused on the information services and telecommunications industries. Lord was the Co-Founder, EVP & CFO and Board Member of Allegiance Telecom before its acquisition by XO Communications. While at Allegiance, he was responsible for raising more than $2.8 billion in capital, structuring more than a dozen acquisitions and forging a strategic relationship with Paul Allen and Vulcan Ventures. Lord also spent more than 10 years as a Managing Director at Bear Stearns where he began the firm's practice in the technology, information services and telecommunications industries. During his tenure, he was responsible for transactions that exceeded $6 billion in equity, debt and M&A.

According to Invirtus CEO Tom Edwards, "We're thrilled to be able to secure support from such savvy and accomplished professionals at this early stage. Ken, Bryan and Tom have tons of experience developing successful technology companies and will be able to help us comfortably navigate the opportunities and deliver on our commitments. Clark's software development experience will prove invaluable as we conceive and introduce new products."

Thanks to Richard Cardona for the news.