Start-up Greenplum gets greenbacks, new CEO

Bill Cook

Greenplum, a start-up developing open-source business intelligence software, announced $19 million in financing and the hiring of Bill Cook as its new chief executive. Sierra Ventures led a $15 million financing round, and Comerica Bank extended a $4 million line of credit. The funds will be used for product development, as well as sales and marketing expansion, the company said. In addition, Sierra Ventures Managing Director Tim Guleri has joined Greenplum's board.

Cook was most recently senior vice president of sales and services at Linux system and software specialist Penguin Computing, but he also spent 19 years at Sun Microsystems. Greenplum is a Sun customer, buying the server maker's Sun Fire X4500 "Thumper" system, which combines dual Advanced Micro Devices Opteron processors with up to 24 terabytes of storage capacity.