Cloud file sharing solutions company Egnyte has announced the closure of a $16 million (£10.3 million) round of Series C venture capital financing led by Google Ventures.

Additional support for the California-based company, which is now planning to expand into the UK by the end of the year, comes from existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Polaris.

The funds will be used to ramp up sales and marketing efforts as well as further the development of Egnyte’s ‘hybrid cloud’ technology, which involves some applications being stored locally while the rest are held remotely ‘in the cloud’.

As a part of the funding, Karim Faris, partner at Google Ventures, will join the board of Egnyte.

Faris says, ‘Hybrid cloud is going to become an important component for global enterprises to run their mission-critical applications. Egnyte’s market momentum, technology strengths and vision for the future were key in our decision to lead the round.

‘Egnyte is developing a new approach to cloud computing and we are excited to be working with them.’

The company recently announced the acquisition of major customers including Balfour Beatty and a 25,000 seat enterprise deal with Y&R group.

Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain says, ‘Hybrid cloud is the right strategy for running mission-critical applications in the enterprise. Our vision and execution in the hot cloud computing space reflects that belief and has kept us in a leading position. 

‘This investment will not only provide us with the funds to expand our efforts, more importantly all our investors represent a strategic interest and belief that hybrid cloud is the next generation cloud.’