Cloud backup startup OwnBackup raises $50 million

Cloud backup startup OwnBackup Ltd. has raised $50 million, the company announced Tuesday. The round was led by New York-based Insight Partners and Israel-based Vertex Ventures, who also led the startup’s $23.25 million series C round last year.

Existing investors, customer-relation management company Salesforce.com Inc. and Eric Schmidt’s venture capital firm Innovation Endeavors, also participated in the round, which brought OwnBackup’s total funding raised to over $100 million.

OwnBackup. Photo: PR

OwnBackup did not disclose its valuation for the round but, according to co-founder Ariel Berkman, it has doubled. “The investors believe in the company and in its accelerated growth,” Berkman said in a phone interview with Calcalist. The company wants to expand its offering and its existing backers offered to invest again, saving it the need to look for new backers, he said. “It was just easier to stay with our investors,” he added.

OwnBackup develops a cloud-to-cloud automated backup and recovery system. The company stated it has achieved around 100% growth in revenue year-over-year for two consecutive years. According to Berkman, despite the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis, OwnBackup continues to exhibit accelerated growth and the last quarter was its best so far.

Founded in 2015 by Berkman and Daniel Gershuni, and Eran Cohen, New Jersey-based OwnBackup employs 250 people worldwide, 70 of them in its Israel development center. “We want to double our Israel team,” Berkman said, adding he believes it will now be easier to recruit top talent but “still not easy and that is why we are accelerating our funding efforts.”

According to Berkman, OwnBackup has a yearly income amounting to tens of millions of dollars from over 2,000 customers of all sizes. “There is a huge market that has previously been untapped,” he said. Some of OwnBackup’s competitors are smaller companies but bigger players are entering this potentially huge market, he added.

Most of OwnBackup's offering is based on Salesforce’s cloud products. “We are very focused on our collaboration with Salesforce, but their customers have the same needs as those of other cloud service providers and we will use this investment to expand,” Berkman said.

OwnBackup counts Caterpillar Inc., AECOM, and Cargill Inc. among its customers. The company also announced the appointment of Roi Dover, formerly a vice president at Nasdaq-listed software company Varonis Systems Ltd., as vice president of research and development.