RightScale, a Santa Barbara-based cloud computing company, recently closed a $25 million round of venture funding, the company announced Sept. 22.

The round was led by Tenaya Capital, a fund that spun off from Lehman Brothers in 2009. DAG Ventures, Benchmark Captital, Index Ventures and Presidio Ventures also invested in the latest round.

“This represents a resounding validation of RightScale’s leadership in cloud management and our tremendous potential for expansion in the fast-evolving cloud computing market,” RightScale CEO Michael Crandell said in a company news release.
Crandell said RightScale will use the money to expand and enhance its current offerings and to accelerate its expansion in Europe and Asia.

Founded in 2006, RightScale is a leader in the field of cloud computing — essentially, Internet-based computing in which companies use faraway servers instead of owning their own. Clients can pay for computing power and server space as they need it, and can scale up or down in a hurry to meet their business needs.

RightScale manages cloud resources in the way that a traditional information technology company would manage onsite servers.

In a June interview with the Business Times, Crandell predicted that within five years, “half of new IT expenditures or more will be around cloud architectures, whether they’re external or internal clouds.”

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