In case you had any doubt that enterprise infrastructure is a hot area of tech, especially in New England, consider Datto. The Norwalk, CT-based company, which has about 80 of its 500-plus employees in Boston, just closed a big financing round to fuel its expansion.
Datto says today it raised $75 million in Series B funding led by Technology Crossover Ventures. The new money brings the data-protection company’s total raised to $100 million. General Catalyst Partners led Datto’s previous round.
Austin McChord, the company’s founder and CEO, cited good market conditions, favorable deal terms, and a strong investor fit as reasons for making the deal. “Datto is already profitable, so we don’t need the cash to fund ongoing operations,” he said in an e-mail. “With this funding, we look forward to growing our business internationally into new markets.”
A lot of people in Boston had never heard of Datto until it acquired the local startup Backupify about a year ago. The goal of that deal was to build a “total data protection” product, including software that can back up and recover corporate data across cloud storage, on-premise systems, and business apps. (Backupify’s co-founder and CEO, Rob May, is now chief executive of a company called Talla that’s focused on machine learning.)
Datto is also moving into the networking market. It has developed a networking appliance—which involves routing hardware as well as software—that it says can help businesses stay connected and manage their networks via the cloud. The up-and-coming buzzphrase here is “business continuity.” That means helping companies keep their businesses running via a mix of storage, backup, disaster recovery, and networking technologies.
In the enterprise IT landscape, storage and networks seem to be merging. As one example, Boston-based ClearSky Data is piloting a new kind of storage network service; the company recently closed a $27 million Series B round.
Datto’s competitors on the storage and backup front include EMC/Mozy, Carbonite, Symantec, and Box. “2016 is going to be a pivotal year for Datto,” McChord said. “We are looking forward to rolling out a wide variety of new tools to help our partners succeed. We are also incredibly excited to begin selling our networking product in the early part of 2016.”
