Brothers on cloud nine after selling hi-tech startup to US firm RightScale

By ERIKKA ASKELAND
Published on 19/07/2012 00:00

Two brothers from Aberdeen have sold their business for an undisclosed sum to a US-based “cloud computing” firm less than six months after it was founded.

Santa Barbara-based RightScale yesterday announced it has acquired Edinburgh-based ShopForCloud – which will be re-branded PlanForCloud.

Hassan and Ali Khajeh-Hosseini will continue to run the business from recently established offices at TechCube in the capital. Ali spent seven months working as a software engineering intern at RightScale while studying for his PhD in computer science at St Andrews University.

ShopForCloud is a free cost forecasting website that enables companies to budget for costs to use “cloud” services with tools for planning various architectures and usage patterns.

Hassan said: “The great thing about RightScale is that they have asked us to keep running this as a startup, to set up a cool office, to expand the team and keep on providing our tools to everyone for free.”

He added: “It is a very exciting time for us and the reason we think this is great news for the Scottish startup community is that it sends out a buzz that the VCs [venture capitalists] and companies in California can see Scotland has got a great bunch of tech startups they can get involved with.”

RightScale said the founders “have lots of great ideas for new features and will continue to expand the PlanForCloud service. We also intend to invest in and grow the team in Edinburgh.”

RightScale is backed by London and San Fransisco-based venture capital firm Index Ventures, which has also backed tech companies such as Asos, Betfair and Lovefilm.