The cloud services sector is still dominated by Amazon and other so-called “hyperscalers” (Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, etc.). Amazon, Microsoft and Google together accounted for 65% of the global cloud services market in the second quarter, up 61% year-on-year, according to IT market research firm Synergy Group.
But that sobering fact hasn’t stopped some entrepreneurs from trying to shake things up.
Two at the forefront are David Friend and Jeff Flowers, who co-founded Wasabi, a cloud startup that offers a service that competes with Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3). Wasabi launched just a few years ago in 2015. However, despite that fact and facing stiff competition, Wasabi has grown his customer base to over 40,000 organizations and has secured an impressively large funding tranche. Series D round finished this morning.
The Series D is part equity ($125 million), part debt ($125 million), bringing Wasabi’s total funding to $495 million and the company’s valuation at $1.1 billion. exceed the dollar. L2 Point Management was led by participation from Cedar Pine and return investors Fidelity Management & Research Company and Forestay Capital.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Friend said the new stake will help Wasabi expand further into markets and support existing channel partnerships. As for the debt, Wasabi’s storage will be used to finance equipment and infrastructure in his region, as well as expand the company’s capabilities with industry-specific products, he added.
“In the next decade or so, most of the world’s data will move from on-premises storage to the cloud, and we want to keep that data in Wasabi as much as possible,” said Friend. “Completing his round of massive ups in this environment speaks to Wasabi’s impressive growth, the magnitude of the cloud storage opportunity, and our leadership as the industry’s largest pure cloud storage his vendor. I think.”
Friend and Flowers started Wasabi together in 2015, when Friend was still CEO of cloud backup company Carbonite. Flowers, who was also at Carbonite, worked with some of the founding engineers when he created Wasabi, eventually convincing Friend to join the effort.
From the beginning, Friend and Flowers decided to make Wasabi almost identical to Amazon S3, but cheaper in some ways. The platform supports “hot” data (data that is readily available), “cool” data in active archives (data that is accessed infrequently), and cool data in inactive archives (data that is not frequently retrieved), and gateway , apps, and third-party platform integrations. .
Image credit: wasabi
Wasabi’s pay-as-you-go pricing is $5.99 per terabyte per month. The company also offers reserved capacity pricing with his 30-day retention policy that allows a customer to purchase 50 terabytes or more in her 1-, 3-, or 5-year term.
Wasabi, which doesn’t charge for egress or API requests, claims that storage fees will be 1/5th the cost of Amazon S3. However, the pricing differences between Wasabi and Amazon S3 make it difficult to directly compare the two. Amazon S3 charges for storage in and out, while Wasabi charges customers who keep full price even if they delete files.
Wasabi has added storage regions in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Toronto, Osaka, Sydney, and Singapore over the past year in an effort to better position itself for S3. Wasabi also introduced an object lock feature to provide immutable storage to protect against ransomware, human error, and other types of data loss.
“[The new regions] It addresses specific issues such as data sovereignty, which helps optimize performance for international customers and channel partners who need to store their data nearby. Having multiple data centers around the world also means that our customers experience very little latency. “We have expanded our personnel and partner network to support our presence in these regions.”
In terms of customer acquisition, Wasabi now has customers in more than 100 countries, including higher education, media and entertainment, data protection and disaster recovery, and the public sector, according to Friend. According to friends, Wasabi has poured outsourced resources into pro-his sports organization this year. The company recently signed deals with the Boston Red He Sox, Boston Bruins and Liverpool Football Club.
Boston Red Sox CTO Brian Shield said Wasabi’s service makes sense for the data work the organization performs. “From player analytics to the Internet of Things to digital assets and even security, this presents a huge learning opportunity for organizations as our data needs continue to evolve,” he said in a statement. added, “Wasabi provides us with a cost-effective cloud-based solution that allows us to quickly acquire content and improve the level of video analysis and production we do here at the Red Sox.” I can do it.”
Friend continues: “We are fortunate to be in the data storage business. Cloud storage adoption surged during the pandemic, fueled by the rise of remote and hybrid work. It’s not a nice to have, it’s a necessity.Everyone has data, more and more every year, and it needs to be stored somewhere.”
That statement is not necessarily exaggerated. According to Statista, his 60% of all corporate data is now stored in the cloud. That’s up from his 30% in 2015, when the analytics firm started tracking trends.
When asked about the economic headwinds and competition from startups such as Cohesity, Datrium, Reduxio and Rubrik, Friend asserts that Wasabi’s pricing model remains very attractive to seeking customers. did. I don’t know yet. However, with Wasabi’s revenue doubling from 2020 to 2021, the startup is clearly doing something right.
“In many cases, users can store their data in Wasabi in addition to the cost of maintaining on-premises storage hardware. I mean, it’s often a big advantage for corporate customers,” said my friend. “While many other technology companies have experienced significant downturns in their business, our growth continues at a very solid level.”
Friend was not committed to a solid hiring plan when asked, but Wasabi’s 250-strong workforce ” [the company] Expand into additional vertical markets and geographies. “
