SolidFire, a flash storage vendor based in Boulder, Colorado, has raised an $82 million series D round of venture capital. Greenspring Associates led the round along with “a major sovereign wealth fund,” according to a company press release. Existing investors NEA, Novak Biddle, Samsung Ventures and Valhalla Partners also contributed to the round, which brings SolidFire’s total investment to $150 million since launching in 2010.

The company is one of a handful of flash storage startups that have seen success in the past few years as companies look to boost performance on applications that tend to lag on hard disks. Conventional wisdom says databases and virtual desktop environments are ideal use cases for flash storage arrays, in some cases splitting the difference between slow-but-cheap hard disks and fast-but-expensive RAM.

Dave Wright, SolidFire CEO (far right) at Structure 2011.

[company]SolidFire[/company] initially staked its claim as the flash vendor building systems designed for service…