SaaS knowledge backup and restoration platform Rewind raises $65M

Rewind, a knowledge backup and restoration platform for software-as-a-service (SaaS) functions, has raised $65 million in a collection B spherical of funding.

Based out of Ottawa, Canada in 2015, Rewind traditionally supplied knowledge backup companies for companies working Shopify, BigCommerce, and Intuit QuickBooks, however earlier this yr the corporate acquired BackHub to increase its help to GitHub and later added help for Trello.

Shared duty

The “drawback” that Rewind and its ilk are striving to resolve is that almost all SaaS platforms function what is called a “shared duty” mannequin, whereby the platform proprietor (e.g. Shopify) is obliged to offer infrastructure-level catastrophe restoration and safety, in order that within the occasion of a systemwide disaster it could actually reinstate all its prospects’ accounts in a single fell swoop. Nonetheless, the client themselves are nonetheless answerable for the safety and administration of particular person accounts on their very own occasion, together with password administration, permissions, and backing up knowledge.

Whereas there could also be some different options accessible to prospects trying to backup their knowledge in SaaS apps equivalent to Trello, they’re usually resource-intensive endeavors — they usually gained’t make it simple to revive the information within the occasion of a catastrophe. And that, finally, is what Rewind is about up for — it’s about “versioning,” giving SaaS app customers the management to revive any recordsdata or knowledge to a selected date and time.

Gartner forecasts international “public cloud end-user spending” to develop 18{69439eabc38bbe67fb47fc503d1b0f790fcef507f9cafca8a4ef4fbfe163a7c5} in 2021, of which SaaS stays the biggest  section — it’s estimated to hit $117.7 billion this yr, up from $101 billion in 2020.

“As companies change into extra reliant on cloud instruments and the information saved inside them, having backups will seemingly change into customary follow for each knowledge and enterprise continuity,” Rewind cofounder and CEO Mike Potter advised VentureBeat. “Whereas enterprise backup gamers are tackling the key software program instruments like Microsoft and Salesforce, the {industry} is hungry for the power to confidently backup and simply restore knowledge from the rising record of functions and cloud instruments that preserve companies working. That’s the place Rewind is available in.”

Furthermore, with the speedy transition to cloud-based companies comes myriad exterior (and inside) threats, together with human error, cyberattacks and the rising scourge of ransomware, although Potter famous that there are quite a few causes its prospects cite for requiring knowledge backup and restoration companies.

“Cyberattacks and ransomware are actually an rising enterprise menace,” he stated. “However the causes we nonetheless most frequently hear about are eliminating the labor value of handbook restores; compliance for designations equivalent to SOC2, HIPAA, or ISO; knowledge or enterprise continuity; and defending mental property.”

Demand

Before now, Rewind had raised somewhat over $15 million, most of which arrived through its collection A spherical introduced again in January. With one other $65 million within the financial institution, from esteemed traders equivalent to Perception Companions, Bessemer Enterprise Companions, Atlassian Ventures, Union Ventures, FundFire, Inovia Capital, Ridge Ventures, and ScaleUp Ventures, the corporate is well-financed to capitalize on the rising cross-industry push to the cloud.

However why elevate once more so quickly after its final spherical of funding? It’s all about doubling down on the expansion it has seen by the pandemic, pushed considerably by the speedy embrace of distant work.

“The demand for cloud backup companies is frequently rising, particularly as corporations are selecting to stay distant or embrace hybrid work eventualities,” Potter defined. “We need to maintain the expansion now we have seen since 2020. This newest spherical will allow us to proceed to construct new backup options for SaaS, and rent the expertise required to get these merchandise to market.”

Rewind’s elevate comes scorching on the heels of numerous different gamers within the house asserting sizable investments, together with OwnBackup, which just lately secured $240 million at a whopping $3.35 billion valuation, and Druva, which secured $147 million at a valuation exceeding $2 billion. Veeam, in the meantime, was snapped up by Perception Companions final yr in a $5 billion deal.

Rewind is trying to cement its personal place within the knowledge backup and restoration house by “filling a crucial hole in present backup safety efforts,” extending its protection to many extra functions that corporations of all sizes have come to depend on. The corporate has already introduced plans to combine with SaaS companies equivalent to Xero, Zendesk, GitLab, Bitbucket, Jira, Weebly, HubSpot, Zoho, Confluence, Basecamp, Monday.com, Asana, and Airtable, with the respective rollouts anticipated within the coming months and into early 2022.  This transfer may also open Rewind’s enchantment extra to the enterprise sphere.

“The issues we’re fixing for enterprise are just like SMB; nonetheless, we at present service extra SMB purchasers than enterprise,” Potter stated. “As we transfer into supporting platforms equivalent to Zendesk, Jira, and Bitbucket, we are going to begin seeing extra enterprise prospects.”