Rubrik grabs $61 million, aims for cloud

Converged data protection startup Rubrik turned to the cloud with a software release that allows customers to use Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure as well as Rubrik’s appliances to store data.

Rubrik launched in April, 2015, with 2u appliances integrated with software that performs backup, deduplication, compression and version management. The new software release, Firefly, supports physical workload such as Microsoft SQL and Linux, and is available in a software-only version for remote and branch offices and public clouds.

Rubrik also closed a $61 million Series C funding round, bringing its total funding to $112 million

Firefly’s capabilities include search and analytics, archiving and copy data management.

Cohesity, which launched around the same time as Rubrik with a similar product, added cloud support last April. Rubrik CEO Bipul Sinha said Rubrik had its eye on the public cloud from the start. It referred to its appliance as a “cloud time machine,” from the start but the original version only had limited support for AWS and none for Azure.

“We started Rubrik with a focus on backup and recovery for VMware,” Sinha said. “But from day one we had a vision for cloud data management – backup, DR, orchestration, compliance, governance and more applications in the cloud.”

Firefly will be available as software only for remote offices. “Selling a full appliance for five to 15 VMs is not cost effective for customers,” Sinha said. “We are selling software-only for them, and they can replicate back into the data center to a Rubrik cluster, or to Amazon or Azure.”

Firefly provides a globally indexed namespace for data and uses zero-data cloning for instant access to data. If on-premise data is lost, customers can bring data back from the public cloud. Rubrik includes a single policy engine for automated orchestration, data permissions for data in the cloud and compliance reporting.

Khosla Ventures led the funding round, with previous investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greylock Partners participating. Sinha said the funding will be invested in sales and marketing and to support early customers.

“Our business is growing rapidly, he said, explaining how Rubrik grabbed a large funding score at a time when funding is hard to come by.