The 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors Of The 2019 Cloud 100

Storage Standouts

Cloud storage is a massive category that spans everything from free backup software to photo sharing to enterprise file sync and sharing to sophisticated disaster recovery and business continuity services. That means a wide range of opportunities for solution providers given that their business customers know no single service can take care of all their cloud data management capabilities.

Here are 20 cloud storage players making their mark.

Acronis

Serguei Beloussov, Chairman and CEO

Acronis, which last year celebrated its 15th anniversary, provides hybrid cloud IT data protection through its backup, ransomware protection, disaster recovery, and secure file sync and share offerings. The company in 2018 added cybersecurity protection to help protect against ransomware, and expanded its Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud partnerships.

Axcient

Eric White, CEO

Axcient and eFolder merged in 2017, settling in 2018 on Axcient as the final company name for the combined developer of data protection, disaster recovery-as-a-service, and file sync and share software.

Carbonite

Mohamad Ali, President and CEO

Carbonite, which originally started as a provider of cloud-based backup technology to consumers but is now focused on MSPs and solution providers looking to protect and manage SMB data, gobbled up one of its early competitors, Mozy, as a way to expand its SMB data protection business.

ClearSky Data

Ellen Rubin, CEO and Co-Founder

ClearSky Data, a startup developer of on-demand primary storage with built-in off-site data protection available as a service, in 2018 unveiled a new $20-million funding round and touted a new Equinix relationship that will triple the number of locations where its services are available.

Cloudian

Michael Tso, CEO and Co-Founder

Cloudian developed object storage technology that allowed on-premises storage systems to work with AWS S3-compatible data. The company in 2018 unveiled a big $94 million funding round to bring its technology to a wider partner base, and acquired Infinity Storage to expand its enterprise file system capabilities.

Cohesity

Mohit Aron, CEO and Co-Founder

Cohesity, which develops what it calls hyper-converged secondary storage as a single platform for managing all types of secondary data and applications, closed a massive $250 million funding round in 2018.r

Commvault

N. Robert Hammer

Commvault provides data protection, infrastructure management, and data retention and compliance software for on-premises and cloud environments. The company in 2018 unveiled modern data protection capabilities combined with a full range of services.

Ctera

Liran Eshel, CEO and Co-Founder

Ctera, which develops secure enterprise file services, used 2018 to expand its capabilities with support for AWS' new S3 Intelligent-Tiering capabilities, unveiled new hardware-based cloud gateways, and closed a $30 million round of funding to expand its global presence.

Datrium

Tim Page, CEO

Datrium develops Cloud DVX, a cloud-native version of its DVX hyper-converged infrastructure platforms with built-in data protection, for Software-as-a-Service-based backup and recovery. The company in 2018 unveiled CloudShift, a new automated disaster recovery offering, and closed a $60 million funding round.

Datto

Tim Weller, CEO

Datto spent 2018 reorganizing itself after closing its acquisition of Autotask, making itself an indispensable part of MSPs' cloud plans whether they need a services platform or point storage, networking, or management capabilities.

Dropbox

Drew Houston, CEO and Co-Founder

Dropbox has morphed from an online storage provider into a cloud-based data protection and enterprise file sync and share service with over 200,000 businesses and organizations counted as customers. In 2018, it finally pulled the trigger on what was one of the biggest IPOs in the tech industry.

Egnyte

Vineet Jain, CEO

Egnyte brings cloud-based secure file sharing, desktop and mobile collaboration, and collaboration to solution providers and MSPs with a special emphasis on governance, including GDPR. It looks to expand its capabilities with a new $75 million funding round it closed in 2018.

HYCU

Simon Taylor, CEO

HYCU became a new old company in 2018 when it became the new brand of Comtrade Software. And for a company with a single focus on protecting Nutanix hyper-converged infrastructure environments, HYCU was pretty busy with new relationships with Nutanix partners like Lenovo, SAP, Carahsoft, Google and more.

Nasuni

Paul Flanagan, President and CEO

Nasuni, which provides cloud-scale enterprise file services, expanded its capabilities with a new platform using cloud object storage to modernize clients' NAS, file server, and data protection capabilities. The company also jockeyed for multi-cloud storage leadership with the ability to globally manage primary and archive data.

Rubrik

Bipul Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder

Data protection and management technology developer Rubrik got the kind of mentor most startups only dream about when John Chambers, Cisco's Chairman Emeritus and former CEO, invested in the company and became a board adviser. The company last year also acquired Datos IO for cloud-native data management.

Scality

Jerome Lecat, CEO

Scality, developer of software-defined storage solutions for distributed file and object storage and multi-cloud data control, used 2018 to cement key relationships help turn HPE GreenLake data lakes into private clouds and integrate the Wasabi Cloud, and along the way got a new $60 million funding round.

StorageCraft

Matt Medeiros, Chairman and CEO

StorageCraft, best known for its ShadowProtect data protection technology, completely revamped its data protection platform for on-premises, virtualized, and cloud environment with the 2018 introduction of OneXafe. OneXafe, pronounced "one safe," is one of the first platforms to unify primary and secondary storage across all environments.

Veeam

Andrei Baronov , CEO and Co-Founder

Veeam technology helps businesses meet recovery time and point objectives of under 15 minutes for any application, any data, on any cloud. The company, which in 2018 became a billion-dollar business, also made a huge play for data protection in AWS environments with its 2018 acquisition of N2Ws.

Veritas

Greg Hughes, CEO

Veritas is a nimble provider of cloud-based data protection technology. In 2018 the company expanded its Google and Azure capabilities, and added artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict and prevent unplanned downtime.

Wasabi

David Friend, CEO

Wasabi Technologies provides an Amazon S3-compatible cloud service it touts as six times faster than AWS S3 at one-fifth the cost. Wasabi in 2018 introduced the Wasabi Ball data transport appliance, and worked with friends and family instead of venture capitalists to raise $68 million.