eXo, a provider of Java middleware for cloud services, has received USD6m in venture capital financing from Auriga Partners and XAnge Capital.

eXo will use the funds to accelerate its US operations, including ramping up marketing and sales.

In addition, eXo has created a new board of directors, naming Bob Bickel as chairman. Bickel is a 25-year software industry veteran with experience building companies including Bluestone Software (acquired by HP) and JBoss (acquired by Red Hat). He also served on the board and as an adviser to Hyperic and SpringSource respectively before their acquisition by VMware.

Philippe Granger, partner at Auriga Partners, and Nicolas Rose, partner at XAnge Capital, will also be joining the new board on behalf of eXo's new investors.

"At eXo, we see a huge opportunity to bring higher level services that can extend installed enterprise Java applications with consumer web features such as collaboration, social and content management," says Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and chief executive of eXo. "We now have the capital and collective business guidance of our new board to execute on this opportunity and take eXo to the next stage of growth."

With an existing footprint in French-speaking markets, eXo opened its first US office last October following a partnership with Red Hat. The new financing will help fuel sales and marketing in North America, including an emphasis on forging partnerships with OEMs, ISVs, SIs, and software-as-a-service providers.

Bickel says: "Benjamin and his team have done a great job of getting eXo to this unique position in the market where it can be the unifying, modernizing framework and user experience platform that Java needs to remain relevant in today's web-driven world. I look forward to working with the eXo team to enhance this position in the months and years ahead."