Tag Archives: storage

More deals in the storage space, Fabrik acquires G-Technology

Just it was a couple of weeks ago when we reported and analyzed the two major acquisitions within the online storage sector IBM announced it has acquired XIV, an Israeli company for what is believed to be $350M and some months ago EMC Corporation has snatched up Mozy for $76M. A few days ago eSureIt, yet another online storage and backup service has raised $5 million in Series A round of funding as the money came from OpenView Venture Partners, a small Boston based investment fund. Today we have dug up yet another deal from the same industry.

Fabrik, a storage hardware and service provider, announced today that they have acquired G-Technology. Deal terms were  not disclosed. G Technology sells external drives that focus on high performance for rich media. Their products are focused on Mac users. G-Technology is also releasing a couple of new products today, including a 1 TB mini Raid USB drive that is bus powered.

Today’s storage consumers have a wide range of options, from plug-in drives to LAN-attached storage to on-demand services. At the same time, an explosion of personal content, from photos to videos to music, is driving the demand. Fabrik is perhaps trying to tie together these options, offering physical storage, on-demand storage, disaster recovery and content-sharing services. This is Fabrik’s third acquisition after previously acquiring Filmloop and SimpleTech.

In February 2007, Fabrik purchased the consumer business of SimpleTech, which now offers a leading portfolio of online services, home network solutions, storage devices and memory for the consumer and small business markets. Serving the creative professional market, G-Tech complements this offering by delivering a respected brand in the Apple Mac community, known for making professional-quality, specialized solutions with unmatched performance, reliability, compatibility and style. Specifically designed for HD video editing, 3D rendering and other demanding applications, G-Tech’s product family further expands the company’s footprint to include a wide array of USB, FireWire, eSATA, SCSI and Fibre Channel systems ideal for both small creative studios or big production houses.

Fabrik is said to be on a $200 million revenue run rate for 2008 and are profitable after raising around $50 million in capital. 90% of the revenues are coming from the U.S. Rumors are that the company is on track for a public offering or a very large acquisition. Cordono, the company’s CEO, says they won’t raise more capital for now, unless its for further acquisitions.

“Fabrik intends to not only to maintain, but accelerate the growth of the G-Tech product line, which represents a strategic part of our overall portfolio,” said Mike Cordano, Fabrik CEO and co-founder. “We are excited about the extension of our market position as G-Tech has done a phenomenal job developing solutions specifically for the Mac and content creation industry. Based on this success, we plan to keep G-Tech’s brand and identity intact, providing working capital, marketing power and resources needed to help grow the business both domestically and abroad.”

Roger Mabon, CEO of G-Tech, sees the acquisition as beneficial for his company as well.

“Fabrik represents a great opportunity for us. Combining Fabrik’s vision, financial resources, and operating team places us in a powerful strategic position. There is no better scenario for our business, the market and the employees at G-Tech,” said Mabon.

Competition / The market

Fabrik won’t be the only one going after this opportunity. The company will compete head-to-head with storage giants like Seagate (whose eVault service uses a SaaS model) and pure-play storage companies like XDrive. Computer makers like Dell are also moving in: Dell said back in November that it plans to acquire storage vendor EqualLogic for $1.4 billion in cash, and it already offers an on-demand backup solution called DataSafe.

Other online storage companies include: Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service), Cnet’s All you can Upload, AllMyData, Box.net, eSnips, Freepository, GoDaddy, iStorage, Mofile, Omnidrive, Openomy, Streamload, Strongspace, iBackup, Zingee, Xdrive and Carbonite, which is known to have raised $21 million in venture financing.

It is also rumored that Google is planning to launch gDrive. Microsoft is also jumping into the same bandwagon and more information can be found over here. Zmanda is an open source back up solution as well.

The online storage space is hugely overpopulated and crowded area. Who is next, we aksed a few weeks ago? A comparison chart over some of the companies above can be found over here: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=93730415&size=o

More about Fabrik

Our digital content and devices play an integral role in our daily lives. We’re giving you the tools, the ‘fabrik,’ to connect it and protect it as never before.” – Mike Cordano, CEO, Fabrik Inc.

Mission
Fabrik’s mission is to simplify a user’s digital experience whether at home, on the Web or on the road by delivering a blend of online services, software and devices that help them store, access, manage, protect and share their growing collections of content.

Services and Solutions
What sets us apart is our unique approach. We are not like traditional storage players. Our core DNA is in software and Web services, giving us the talent to execute and the ability to provide integrated, end-to-end content management and backup solutions.

Store
Our broad range of solutions includes innovative portable and external storage and backup solutions, and network attached storage devices for creative professionals, consumers and small business users. By blending simplicity, style and function, Fabrik’s storage solutions have become one of the leading brands on the market today.

Share
Our unique online service, Fabrik Beta, provides revolutionary change in the way we manage, access, share, and connect with our content. With photos, music, documents and videos scattered across multiple devices, Fabrik Beta finds your content and presents it to you in a single, elegant view – no matter where it resides. Based on an innovative platform, it combines the flexibility to access content anytime, anywhere, with the power and functionality of a traditional desktop application. Just imagine the possibilities when blending it with our devices and other online services!

Backup
In the event of a fire, theft or other major loss, what good is a backup on your external drive when it’s gone? Revolutionizing the way consumers protect their digital content, Fabrik delivers both local and online backup in one solution. With multiple layers of protection, users can easily protect digital memories and content they just couldn’t do without. Fabrik Ultimate Backup works in the background, uploading important files securely, remotely and automatically.

Move
We also offers a full line of high-speed memory upgrades, including the latest DDR, DDR2, DDR3 and SDRAM technologies that support business and consumer applications including desktops, laptops, consumer electronics, servers, networking and telecommunications. With more than 2,000 memory upgrades available, our easy-to-use Upgrade Navigator ensures you get the right memory for the right solution.

The CEO

Mike Cordano is the CEO and a cofounder of Fabrik. Along with his vision for the company and his passion to provide users with simpler ways to get more out of their personal media, Mike brings proven success and expertise in delivering products and services to consumers around the globe. Prior to co-founding Fabrik, Mike served as executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Maxtor Corporation, a worldwide leader in data storage products. At Maxtor, Mike provided leadership to all sales, product marketing, corporate marketing, public relations, technical support, customer service and business planning organizations. In addition to his other corporate wide duties, Mike was responsible for the formation and management of the branded products business unit at Maxtor. With the creation of strong product categories such as Maxtor OneTouch, the branded products business became the leading provider of external storage expansion and data backup products for the consumer and SOHO markets. Mike’s background also includes several regional and international management assignments, which solidified his leadership skills on a local and global scale. Mike holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Colorado.

Other executives are Mike Williams and Mark McEachen. The board of directors includes Keyur Patel, Mike Cordano, Ross Levinsohn and Jim McLean.

Fabrik Inc., founded in 2005, is a privately owned company with offices in San Mateo and Santa Ana, California. Fabrik is backed by investments from Comventures, Intel Capital, and a $24.9 million Series D investment round that came in just recently and was led by 3i.

More about G-Technology

G-Technology Inc. manufactures the industry’s most comprehensive line of external disk storage solutions designed for professional content creation applications. Our USB, FireWire, eSATA, SCSI and Fibre Channel systems support all levels of audio/video production. G-Tech’s focus on technology, quality and design has resulted in disk storage solutions with unmatched performance, reliability and style… G-Tech corporate headquarters is located in the heart of the Santa Monica Studio District in sunny Southern California.

“G-Tech’s mission is to provide the creative community with quality products that incorporate superior industrial design, functionality, usability and performance at affordable prices,” said Roger S. Mabon, VP of Sales and Marketing for G-Technology, Inc. “Our first – and award winning – product, a FireWire 800 RAID solution called G-RAID, meets all of these criteria and is in a class of its own.”

G-Technology was founded by Roger Mabon four years ago and is said to be self funded company.

More

http://www.g-technology.com/News/pdf/Fabrik-G-Tech.pdf
http://www.g-technology.com/
http://www.fabrik.com/
http://www.myfabrik.com/register/press_release.php
http://www.fabrikultimatebackup.com/
http://www.myfabrik.com/
http://gigaom.com/2008/01/15/fabrik-acquires-g-tech-aims-to-consolidate-consumer-storage-offerings/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/15/fabrik-acquires-g-technology-expect-2008-revenues-of-200-million/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/12/filmloop-betrayed-by-investors/
http://www.crunchgear.com/2006/11/21/fabrik-launches-myfabrik-google-yawns-has-sandwich/
http://gigaom.com/2007/11/06/for-emc-dell-hell-in-equallogic/
https://web2innovations.com/money/2008/01/03/two-major-acquisition-deals-within-the-online-storage-space/
https://web2innovations.com/money/2008/01/05/online-storage-sector-is-hot-yet-another-player-is-entering-the-game/
http://www.g-technology.com/News/pdf/G-Tech-G-RAID-FINAL.pdf
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080115/aqtu065a.html?.v=2
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/01-15-2008/0004736905&EDATE=
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/fabrik

Two major acquisition deals within the online storage space

IBM today announced it has acquired XIV, a privately-held storage technology company based in Tel Aviv, Israel. XIV, its technologies and employees, will become part of the IBM System Storage business unit of the IBM Systems and Technology Group. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but sources tell the price was $350M. 

XIV’s main product Nextra is a storage system based on a grid of standard hardware components. XIV will become part of the IBM System Storage business unit of the IBM Systems and Technology Group. XIV was established in 2002 by five graduates from the 14th class of the Israeli Army’s elite “Talpiot” program where the name XIV coming from. It’s the Roman numeral for 14. The company got only $3 million in backing thus far, making this deal a fairly huge exit for the founders.

“The acquisition of XIV will further strengthen the IBM infrastructure portfolio long term and put IBM in the best position to address emerging storage opportunities like Web 2.0 applications, digital archives and digital media,” said Andy Monshaw, general manager, IBM System Storage. “The ability for almost anyone to create digital content at any time has accelerated the need for a whole new way of applying infrastructure solutions to the new world of digital information.  IBM’s goal is to provide the leading technologies and solutions at every layer of the data center – storage, servers, software and services – to address these new realities IT customers face.” 

“We are pleased to become a significant part of the IBM family, allowing for our unique storage architecture, our engineers and our storage industry experience to be part of IBM’s overall storage business,” said Moshe Yanai, chairman, XIV.  “We believe the level of technological innovation achieved by our development team is unparalleled in the storage industry.  Combining our architectural advancements with IBM’s world-wide research, sales, service, manufacturing, and distribution capabilities will provide us with the ability to have these technologies tackle the emerging Web 2.0 technology needs and reach every corner of the world.”

The NEXTRA architecture has been in production for more than two years, with more than four petabytes of capacity being used by customers today. 

IBM’s acquisition of XIV supports the IBM growth strategy and capital allocation model, as part of the company’s overall objective for earnings-per-share growth through 2010.

XIV is led by Moshe Yanai, one of the key architects of data storage systems and instrumental in the development of EMC’s Symmetrix and DMX product lines throughout the 1990s.

Which brings us to the question why EMC did not buy XIV but that was done by IBM? EMC instead has acquired the online storage startup Mozy, headquartered in Utah. EMC Corporation itself is a public storage company. EMC has paid $76 million for the company, according to web sources.

“Mozy’s technology and online delivery model has proven itself to be one of the industry’s most admired offerings for customers looking to safely and cost-effectively backup and recover their digital information stored on desktops, laptops, and remote office servers,” said Tom Heiser, EMC SVP, Corporate Development and New Ventures. “The acquisition of Mozy is a natural extension of EMC’s leadership in the protection and security of personal and business information. We will continue to invest in Mozy’s full portfolio of online backup and recovery services and advance the Mozy brand in the marketplace.”

“I have been researching and developing internet-scale storage and information management solutions throughout my career,” said Josh Coates, founder and former CEO of Berkeley Data Systems. “EMC and Berkeley Data Systems are a natural fit, and I’m confident that EMC is the right organization to take Mozy to the next level. I look forward to working with EMC to continue innovating in the storage and information management industry.”

The company has basically a very simple way for users to back up their computer hard drives online. You need to download their software and the backups occur slowly over time. Mozy supports both Windows and Mac machines.

Mozy has raised just $1.9 million in venture capital, which is less than the $3M XIV has raised but the XIV’s exit sale is much larger by contrast. The round, closed in May 2005, was led by Wasatch Ventures, with participation from Tim Draper of Draper Associates and Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson and Novell co-founder Drew Major. Mozy was created by Berkeley Data Systems, which is a technology company based in Utah that specializes in large scale, parallel storage systems and software.

There were rumors circulating some time ago that Mozy was close to being acquired by Google for significantly less than this. The company eventually passed on the deal, which must have been a tough call. They clearly made the right choice in waiting.

About EMC Corporation

EMC Corporation is the world’s leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions. We help organizations of every size around the world keep their most essential digital information protected, secure, and continuously available. We are among the 10 most valuable IT product companies in the world. We are driven to perform, to partner, to execute. We go about our jobs with a passion for delivering results that exceed our customers’ expectations for quality, service, innovation, and interaction. We pride ourselves on doing what’s right and on putting our customers’ best interests first. We lead change and change to lead. We are devoted to advancing our people, customers, industry, and community. We say what we mean and do what we say. We are EMC, where information lives. EMC Corporation has nearly $40 billion market cap. EMC is listed on the NYSE (NYSE: EMC).

About IBM System Storage business

IBM is a market leader in the storage industry. Innovative technology, open standards, excellent performance, a broad portfolio of storage proven software, hardware and solutions offerings – all backed by IBM with its recognized e-business on demand(r) leadership are just a few of the reasons why you should consider IBM storage offerings. Through its deep industry expertise, patent leadership, research and innovation, IBM has long been the leader in providing customers with technology solutions that help them deliver and utilize information effectively.  With industry recognized leadership in storage and server hardware and software, and through the recent strategic acquisitions of Softek, FileNet and NovusCG, IBM has grown its storage services offerings and presents customers with strategic solutions to deliver integrated software, hardware, services and research in standardized offerings that can be used by customers of all sizes to help them transform their businesses.  

Competition

Other online storage companies include: Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service), Cnet’s All you can Upload, AllMyData, Box.net, eSnips, Freepository, GoDaddy, iStorage, Mofile, Omnidrive, Openomy, Streamload, Strongspace, iBackup, Zingee, Xdrive and Carbonite, which is known to have raised $21 million in venture financing.

It is also rumored that Google is planning to launch gDrive. Microsoft is also jumping into the same bandwagon and more information can be found over here. Zmanda is an open source back up solution as well.

The online storage space is hugely overpopulated and crowded area. Who is next? A comparison chart over some of the companies above can be found over here: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=93730415&size=o

Our basic conclusion is that both XIV and Mozy have made very impressive exit deals taking into consideration the small amount of funding they both have taken so far.

More

http://www.mozy.com/
http://mozy.com/blog
http://mozy.com/news/releases
http://www.xivstorage.com/
http://www.xivstorage.com/company/company_news.asp 
http://www.emc.com/
http://www.emc.com/about/
http://www.ibm.com/storage
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/index.html
http://crunchbase.com/company/mozy
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/03/ibm-acquires-storage-company-xiv-for-350-million/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/03/benchmark-europe-invests-in-uk-gambling-site/
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/carbonite
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang/
http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2005/12/online_backups_.html
http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/2006/05/online-data-storage-companies-ongoing.html
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1951237,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1934589,00.asp
http://sftechsessions.com/2006/06/june-online-storage/
http://c2web.blogspot.com/2006/01/carbonite-online-photo-backup.html
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=93730415&size=o
http://www.storagesearch.com
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20061214.html
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-10-30-tech-backup_N.htm
http://draperandassociates.com/
http://www.dfj.com/