INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Cloud services — where our data, apps and computing power are all being managed in servers owned by others, many miles from where we are
sitting — have taken off like a rocket in the decade with the rise of smaller devices, but in the business world, hybrid solutions —
mixing cloud with on-premise architectures — remains the order of the day
And today, a provider of hybrid cloud services has raised a round of funding to capitalise on that
Datrium, a provider of back-up and other services for businesses that store and use data in hybrid environments, has raised $60 million in a
Series D round of funding.The company is not disclosing its valuation — we&re asking — but PitchBook estimates that it was at $222
million pre-money, putting it at $282 million post-money
This was an upround compared to previous raises, but it also playing on a more modest field than some of its competitors
As a point of comparison, another notable hybrid cloud back-up and data management startup, Rubrik, raised $180 million at a $1.3 billion
valuation last year.Interestingly, Datrium and Rubrik share an investor
This latest round was led by Samsung Catalyst Fund, withIcon Ventures, NEA and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participating
Lightspeed (whose investing partner founded and leads Rubrik) also backs Rubrik.Large enterprises are gradually making the move to the
cloud, but they are doing so while also continuing to use their legacy services and architectures — in part to continue sweating those
assets, and in part because if something isn&t broken, it tempting fate to try to fix it
As a result of that, hybrid cloud services have been a big business up to now, with estimates that it will be a $44.6 billion market this
year, and growing to $97.6 billion by 2023.&As a world leader in memory and storage technologies, we&re always looking for novel and
innovative ways to advance datacenter technology,& said Shankar Chandran, senior vice president and managing director, Samsung Catalyst
&At this unique moment in time—when data is powering the economy—cutting-edge infrastructure, like Datrium hybrid cloud platform, will
help enterprises overcome major obstacles in data analysis and storage
We are excited to be an investor in their future.&And with a market of that size, startups are not only ones targeting it
Google has gone all-in on hybrid;VMware is also interested; and HPE has madesomeacquisitions to expand its hybrid computing business, as has
Microsoft(at least twice), and Cisco.Datrium — with its flagship DVX platform — has been one of the hopefuls in providing a specific
area of data services to enterprises operating hybrid environments: data management and data backup, with customers ranging from large
players in healthcare and finance through to media and entertainment
Interestingly, it doing so at a time when others like Rubrik have gradually been building more cloud-only solutions to expand beyond hybrid
environments customers relying on these.With this roundMichael Mullany of Icon Ventures — formerly a VP of marketing and products for
VMware — is joining the board of Datrium.&We are thrilled to partner with Samsung and Icon Ventures to expand our technical and
geographical momentum,& said Tim Page, CEO of Datrium, in a statement
&Enterprises globally have the same problems in simplifying compute and data management across on-prem and cloud
Where SANs don&t even have apath to cloud, traditional HCI has too many tradeoffs for core datacenters & backup requires separate purchasing
and administration, and cloud DR automation is seldom guaranteed
Larger enterprises are realizing that Datrium software offers them a simpler path.&
