The Power of a Unique and Bold Vision
One of the great things about being involved in the early-stage investment business is it gives you a front row seat to cutting-edge shifts in technology. We get to do meaningful work -- partnering with visionary entrepreneurs who believe they can build a company that makes an enormous impact on the world. Oftentimes though, their vision describes a completely new way of doing something that challenges accepted conventions – and this can be difficult to grok.
Here at North Bridge, we’ve known Ash Ashutosh, CEO of Actifio, for over a decade. In 2009, he set out with a vision for a “radically simple” copy data management solution to solve a problem that’s only getting gnarlier as enterprises gather, analyze, and store data at a galloping 45 percent CAGR (IDC). Up to 75 percent of a company’s data is simply copies of primary data that have been created in various non-integrated, siloed processes – backup, snapshot, business continuity, disaster recovery, testing & development, and analytics. Amazingly, many enterprises are now paying more to manage copies of their data than to manage the original data that actually creates value. Enterprises can’t continue to carry the cost and complexity associated supporting all these multiple copies – especially as Big Data keeps getting bigger. No one benefits other than the old storage guard.
This is the $34B+ global market opportunity waiting for someone with the vision and IP to address it. Solving these types of problems is hard and many are uncomfortable wading into uncharted waters where there is no proven model. Based on our prior experience with Ash, we knew how smart he was, how deeply he understood customer problems, of his unique insights into the storage market and that he’s a tenacious entrepreneur. With this trust and our sector expertise we jumped in to brainstorm, validate the ideas with customers and build the company together.
Along the long road from inception to impact are a number of milestones that indicate the hard work, the beliefs and the loyalties that North Bridge shares with its founding teams are beginning to make a difference. Today's announcement from Actifio that North Bridge is joined by some of the world’s leading VC firms in a $50 million investment in Actifio, is one of those milestones – and validates that the Ash’s original vision has gained great traction.
The fact is attacking the copy data problem is knotty and complex, especially when the goal is to make the solution simple. Yet, Actifio and its collection of industry vets have engineered a solution that saves a fast-growing roster of happy customers up to 90 percent in copy data management costs. This is a great example of North Bridge’s bias toward startups that attack big, hairy problems in far-sighted ways with the potential to transform entire industries. Because Actifio is based in Waltham, Mass., it’s able to call on some of the best infrastructure engineers in the world, right here in New England. Actifio was Storage Magazine’s 2012 Product of the Year, and last month was named one of Forbes’ Most Promising American Companies, which validates our belief that to be in the right place at the right time, you go to the right place and work hard.
Most important of all, Actifio grew 700 percent year-over-year on a global basis in 2012, racking up its tenth consecutive quarter of double-digit sequential growth. Six of those quarters saw growth above 500 percent. Now an all-star team of VCs has collectively bet $100 million that the promise we saw in Ash and Actifio from Day 1 will lead to even bigger and better things. That’s great validation of a team with a powerful and unique vision.
