File Virtualization Startup Actifio Scores $33.5 Million In Funding

With the new round of funding, Actifio has now raised a total of $57 million in the last four years, said Ash Ashutosh, founder and CEO of the Waltham, Mass.-based company.

Actifio had bee planning on a round funding of between $15 million and $20 million, but in less than two weeks closed the round at $33.5 million, Ashutosh said. "It was a much bigger round than we start out with," he said. "And it was a very short round."

Actifio's Protection and Availability Storage (PAS) platform cuts back on the amount of data a company stores by virtualizing how files are stored to eliminate multiple copies, Ashutosh said.

"Four years ago, when we were starting out, we saw that the data explosion was caused from all the copies of data being stored," he said. "We virtualize the copies of the data to reduce their footprint by up to 90 percent, and in the process eliminate the need for many of the applications used to manage the copies."

Several applications create copies of data, and they have four primary functions including copying data, storing data on their own media, replicating data, and restoring data, Ashutosh said.

A backup application, for instance, might create multiple copies of a file for use in recovering data from previous versions, or test and development applications might need multiple copies of data, he said.

"Our technology allows data to be captured once, and from there it can recreate any data from any point in time," he said. "It's like a storage system with a time dial. It provides optimized copies of data so that other applications don't need to, especially backup software. ... We like to say, the future of backup is, no backup software. And when the backup software goes away, you don't need the appliances that goes with it."

Actifio's sales are completely through channel partners, including 135 direct partners as well as other through distributors including Arrow and Promark, Ashutosh said.

The company expects to be cash-flow positive sometime in early to mid 2013, he said. "We're investing heavily on marketing and partners, with all the investment going back to build us into a midsize company," he said.