Scale Computing in midst of $7.5M private offering

Scale Computing Inc. intends to raise at least $7.5 million in private investment and is more than halfway to its goal, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Scale had already raised $4.74 million when it disclosed its private offering on March 26.

The Indianapolis data-storage company, which is emerging as a top player in the city’s tech sector, raised at least $43 million in venture capital from 2009 to 2012, according to CrunchBase. That put the firm behind only ExactTarget ($214.9 million) and Angie’s List ($53.6 million) in the state of Indiana, according to IBJ data.

The firm was founded in 2007.

Founder and CEO Jeff Ready on Monday declined to discuss the latest fundraising round until it was finished.

Ready moved to Indiana and started Scale after a tenure in Silicon Valley that included starting and selling two other businesses.

Scale's “data center in a box” targets small and midsize businesses by combining technology infrastructure into a single device. The device—about the size of a piece of checked luggage—handles a company’s network needs for a single, upfront payment that starts at $25,500.

Stephen Hourigan, CEO of Scale investor Elevate Ventures, told IBJ last year that the company has “disrupted” major competitors, such as cloud network provider Amazon Web Services Inc.

Scale is able to keep its prices lower than its larger competitors that run cloud data centers, which typically charge monthly subscriptions. For a midsize business, that can run thousands of dollars each month.

Forbes reported the company had $5 million in revenue in 2010, when the magazine in 2011 deemed Scale one of the nation’s “Most Promising Companies.” Announcements since then have routinely referred to “record” quarterly results, but the company declines to release actual numbers.