En Route to IPO, Compellent Secures $15 Million In New Financing Led By Nomura.

Innovative data storage products and business model drive greater than 100 percent revenue growth in 2006 and profitability

MINNEAPOLIS -- Compellent, the leading innovator in enterprise storage, today announced that it has secured $15 million in financing led by new investor Nomura International plc. Existing investors also participated in this round. Demand for Compellent's award-winning midrange storage area network (SAN), Storage Center, and the operating efficiency of the company's business model will more than double revenue in 2006 and ensure consistent profitability in 2007.

Since its introduction in early 2004, Compellent's SAN has attracted more than 400 customers, an international network of channel partners and widespread industry acclaim for the product's powerful capabilities and ease-of-use. Compellent's Storage Center was named 2006 "Best SAN" by IDG's InfoWorld, a leading magazine for technology decision-makers.

"Compellent's growth is among the fastest we've seen in the storage industry," said Andrew Healey, head of Nomura International's Technology Private Equity Group. "Their unique combination of ground-breaking technology and a highly-efficient business model has allowed unprecedented growth for minimal investment compared to other data storage companies."

Compellent's Storage Center radically reduces the total cost of storage acquisition and management through a feature set and user interface that offers unparalleled functionality and ease of use. Among its many features, Storage Center is the industry's only SAN with Automated Tiered Storage, which automatically moves data to the optimum tier of storage based on usage. No other data storage provider can deliver this capability.

"Our significant revenue growth and how quickly we are approaching profitability prove that our business model is working, and working well," said Phil Soran, founder and chief executive officer for Compellent. "We will use this additional financing to further accelerate our growth, funding incremental sales and marketing resources and international expansion of our business."

Compellent has combined significantly differentiated sales, manufacturing, and product development strategies into a highly-efficient and scalable business model that enables the company to minimize operating costs while maximizing the resources focused on software innovation. As a result, demand for Compellent's data storage products has greatly accelerated customer adoption, revenue growth and profitability.

Unlike other enterprise storage vendors who tap resellers for distribution but ultimately compete with them via direct sales, Compellent has an "all-channel" sales model that motivates its channel partners and significantly reduces the cost of sales. In addition, Compellent employs a virtual manufacturing strategy that eliminates the need for factories and inventory, and utilizes a hardware architecture based entirely on industry standards that removes the need for proprietary hardware design, personnel and infrastructure.

In total, Compellent has raised more than $53 million since its founding by storage area network and virtualization pioneers Phil Soran, John Guider and Larry Aszmann. Compellent is yet another successful storage venture for the trio, having previously founded and eventually sold Xiotech to Seagate for $360 million in 2000.

Previous financing was led by investors Cargill Ventures, Centennial Ventures, Crescendo Ventures, and El Dorado Ventures.

About Compellent

Compellent delivers affordable, modular storage solutions exclusively through business partners that provide companies of all sizes enterprise-level storage capabilities without big system costs or complexities. Designed by network storage and virtualization pioneers, Compellent enables any business to cut storage expenditures in half, recover from data hazards within minutes, scale to any capacity across any technology and easily manage its storage without adding staff. Headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minn., Compellent has raised more than $53 million in financing from leading investors including Cargill Ventures, Centennial Ventures, Crescendo Ventures, El Dorado Ventures and The Nomura Group. For more information, visit www.compellent.com.

About Nomura

The Technology Private Equity Group ("PEG") is a specialist Venture Capital division of Nomura Group, one of the world's leading investment banks and Japan's largest securities firm. Since its creation in 1997, PEG has invested in 50 companies in the Technology sector, in the US and Europe. Many of PEG's portfolio companies have been involved in IPOs and mergers. Representative investments include Meriton Networks, Visage Mobile, Revivio, NetForensics, Arraycomm, enCommerce and Arc.

Nomura is a global financial services group dedicated to providing a broad range of financial services for individual, institutional, corporate and government clients. The Group offers a diverse line of competitive products and value-added financial and advisory solutions through its global headquarters in Tokyo, 133 branches in Japan, and an international network in 29 countries; with regional headquarters in Hong Kong, London and New York. The Group's business activities include investment consultation and brokerage services for retail investors in Japan, and, on a global basis, brokerage services, securities underwriting, investment banking advisory services, merchant banking, and asset management. For further information about Nomura please visit our website at www.nomura.com.