With offices in more than 30 countries, Swiss-based Veeam Software is about to take its next steps towards total market take over with the help of private equity firm Insight Partners. The cloud-backup company has agreed to be acquired by its long-time investment partner at a $5 billion valuation and, as part of the deal, will move its headquarters to the United States.
Founded in 2006 by Andrei Baronov and Ratmir Timashev, the firm launched its first product, Veeam Backup & Replication, two years later. Since then, Veeam has expanded its portfolio to include a full suite of data protection solutions. Earlier this year, the company announced the newest capabilities of its Availability Orchestrator, the automation component of its core data protection tools, at a customer event in Florida. Customers will now be able to create automated processes for restoring applications when an outage-disaster strikes.
Veeam provides cloud-driven data protection to over 350,000 customers – including 81 percent of the Fortune 500 and 66 percent of Global 2000 as clients. With approximately 4,000 customers signing on every month, the firm has enjoyed double-digit growth numbers and recently surpassed $1 billion in bookings. Some of the business's most significant partners and resellers include Cisco, NetApp, and Lenovo. Despite the star-studded numbers, some believe Veeam is just getting started.
“It’s rare to find a company of this size that still has a huge amount of room in terms of growth potential,” said Mike Triplett, a managing director with Insight Partners.
Veeam isn't well-known in the United States, but the New York-based investment firm plans on changing that with establishing a stronger US presence and accelerating plans for its global expansion. As more organizations turn to multiple cloud providers to optimize their operations, the privately held company plans to leverage the growing need for data management solutions for these complex environments. There has been no announcement about the location of Veeam’s new head office, but proximity to big business players is vital.
“The largest market opportunities, they’re in the enterprise, they’re in the government sectors, they’re in the cloud,” said Danny Allen, Veeam’s new CTO. "All the major players for the hyper-scale public cloud are based in the US, so being centered there gives us the opportunity.
The acquisition deal also means changes for the cloud backup provider’s leadership team – William Largent has been promoted from Veeam’s EVP operations to CEO. At the same time, Danny Allen moved up from its VP of product strategy to CTO. Conversely, co-founders Baronov and Timashev are stepping down from the board of directors to make way for Insight's Mike Triplett, independent investor Nick Ayers, and Largent.
The deal is expected to close sometime in Q1 2020, subject to regulatory approvals.
