Young Veeam Software Skyrocketing in Storage Virtualization

You have two kinds of CEOs in the industry. CEOs of public companies who avoid to say more than what is published in their SEC filings. And CEOs of private ones that always have the same argument not to divulge figures: "We are a private company."

But in English with a strong Russian accent, Ratmir Timashev, 45, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Veeam Software, Inc. speaks – maybe too much -, even if it’s easier when your firm is skyrocketing.

Look at what we got from him during a press conference in Paris (comparison with CommVault comes from StorageNewsletter.com.)

                        
Annual Revenue 
           and Comparison With CommVault*

  * FY ended March 31

More precisely, revenue of license was 80% and service (maintenance) 20% in 2012 for Veeam.

Timashev adds that the company, born in 2006, was profitable since 2009, that’s why it didn’t need any financial round since its inception, like most of the start-ups.

Currently it has 64,000 paid customers for the backup software for VMware and Hyper-V – not including 200,000 users of Veeam Backup Free Edition and Veeam FastSCP. This figure is expected to grow to 93,000 at the end of the year.

The software protects a total of four million VMs. "We think we have 17% of the worldwide market of VMware backup and we expects 28% in 2013," claimed Timashev.

55% of revenue come from SMBs, 30% from mid-range market and 15% from big enterprises with 74% of them being Fortune 500.

Geographically 45% of them are in Europe, 40% in USA and 15% in other countries.

Total bookings revenue grew 39% in 1Q13 compared to 1Q12, and new license bookings revenue increased 28% over the same period.

"We sell mostly to VMware administrators that understand virtualization, they are our core customers, rather than people in charge of storage," remarked Timashev. "We see our growth more in enterprises and adding cloud features. And more on Microsoft Hyper-V that represents $5 million for us in 2012, expected to be in the $15 million to $20 million range in 2013."

The company sells only through the channel, being supported by 16,000 partners in the world.

Veeam employs 1,000 people, including 400 in Russia – mainly for R&D -, 350 in USA and 250 in Europe.

Timashev is not interested by an IPO but has been approached to sell Veeam. He said that, during a meeting with Dell, one of the participant asked him what will be the price, and he answered "between $2 billion an $3 billion".  Finally Dell acquired AppAssure in June 2012 and he asked Dell why they don’t contact him for a proposal, understanding that during the meeting the giant IT manufacturer was really interested to buy the company.

Veeam is today one of the most – if not the most – successful storage start-up in the world and the king in storage for VMs. Timashev expects to reach more than a quarter billion of dollar in 2013, just seven years after its inception. For CommVault, the most successful public firm in backup software, it took 22 years to surpass this amount. This year Veeam will represent more than half of CommVault.

Veeam’s CEO see the future of the company in more global data management and he didn’t exclude acquisitions to add functionalities like data analytics.

The start-up will announce (the news is under embargo until May 20) the v7 of its flagship product, Veeam Backup & Replication.