4 Million $ to MuleSource

interesting, moving up and across the stack(s):

A start-up called MuleSource has convinced two venture capitalists that there's money to be made in bringing open-source methods to the software that ties together existing computer applications, CNET News.com has learned.

MuleSource

closed a deal Tuesday for $4 million in funding split evenly from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Morgenthaler Ventures, said co-founder and Chief Executive Dave Rosenberg. The company is aiming
for a place in the market for integration software, sometimes called an enterprise service bus, that passes messages among different applications that often don't know how to communicate directly.

The company's technology is based on the Mule open-source software launched by co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Ross Mason, a consultant who specializes in integration issues.

San Francisco-based MuleSource, with seven employees so far, plans to formally launch in September, the same time it releases a new version of the Mule software. The company plans to sell recurring  subscriptions for software support, Rosenberg said.