Estonian Leil Storage raises €1.5M

Estonian company Leil Storage, which develops software for data storage infrastructure, has raised €1.5M in seed funding. The round was led by Karma Ventures with participation Specialist VC.

Leil develops software that enables the use of hard drives with shingled magnetic recording (SMR). This method allows approximately 20% more data to be stored on a drive than on conventional continuous magnetic recording drives, which are commonly used in data centers. This reduces the cost per terabyte by approximately 20% and lowers energy consumption. Leil Storage was founded on November 24, 2022, in Tallinn, Estonia. Founders: Aleksandr Ragel (CEO) and David Gerstein (CTO).

Founded in 2016 by Kristjan Laanemaa, Margus Uudam, and Tommi Uhari, Karma Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm, investing in late seed and A-series European startups. The firm injects up to €5M in the initial round and also makes follow-on investments in later rounds.

Founded in Tallinn in 2017, Specialist VC is a venture capital firm that supports companies from the Baltic region, Finland and Ukraine. In early 2022, Specialist VC launched a €50M fund, supported by the Estonian LHV pension fund and the European Investment Fund through the European Guarantee Fund and the Baltic Innovation Fund 2. Specialist VC's partners are Kaspar Hanni, Riivo Anton, Tõnu Esko, and Gerri Kodres.