Open-source firm SourceLabs bags $7 million

SourceLabs said that it has secured $7 million in series B financing, as the company seeks to capitalize on the growing acceptance of open-source software among corporations.

The money will be used to continue developing SourceLabs' automated support system and expand its sales operations, said CEO Byron Sebastian on Wednesday.

SourceLabs was launched about two years ago around the idea of offering corporate customers support for open-source software products, particularly Linux, Apache Web server, MySQL database and other Java development software.

Earlier this year, it introduced software for automatically spotting and diagnosing software glitches, a system designed to speed up problem resolution.

Investor Brad Silverberg, a partner at venture capital firm Ignition Partners, said that SourceLabs' automated support system is the company's "secret weapon."

"Whenever there is a request, we will go and do a test case, a bake-off (against other vendors) and we've won every single one," he said. "Some of it is the quality of the people, but it's also the proprietary technology."

Investors in this round were Madrona Venture Group, which led the round, as well as Ignition Partners and Index Ventures.