In its first return to investing since becoming an independent company three months ago, Hewlett Packard Enterprise today announced a follow-up contribution to the $45 million August funding round of Scality Inc., an emerging software-defined storage provider. The capital infusion puts the startup in league with big names such as infrastructure automation powerhouse Chef Inc. and Hortonworks Inc. of Hadoop fame.

Both companies landed major partnerships with Meg Whitman’s firm after becoming part of its investment portfolio, a pattern that has repeated itself with Scality. HPE will join forces with the startup to explore new ways of jointly monetizing its platform and bolster the reseller agreement they announced back in October 2014 to that end with additional marketing resources. The move is set to put the full force of the data center giant’s global sales network behind the software, which should translate into a significant revenue boost.

HPE, for its part, gains the benefit of one-upping the distribution agreement Scality signed with archnemesis Dell Inc. last August, shortly before its $45 million funding round was announced. The newly expanded alliance also serves as a counter to the software-defined storage efforts of IBM Corp., another key rival, which acquired one of the startup’s top competitors around the same time. Cleversafe Inc.’s object storage software had already racked up big-name users such as Shutterfly Inc. and the Miami Marlins before the sale.

Additionally, the company raised some $100 million in external funding, noticeably more than the $80 million Scality has received over the five funding rounds it completed to date. However, that doesn’t include the new capital from HPE, which suggests the gap is now much narrower. The companies didn’t disclose provide any official figures, but The Register reports that the investment is valued at $10 million.

Image via Geralt