Carbonite CEO David Friend Named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2010 in New England

BOSTON, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Carbonite®, a leading provider of online backup, announced CEO and Co-Founder David Friend has been named winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2010 Award in New England. Friend received the honor at a special gala event on June 24 at the Boston Renaissance Waterfront Hotel. As a result of this accomplishment, he now is competing for the national Entrepreneur of the Year award, which will be announced in November.

According to Ernst & Young LLP, the awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who demonstrate extraordinary success in the areas of innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Friend was selected as a winner from nearly 40 finalists by a panel of independent judges.

"I'm humbled that my friends and colleagues who nominated me, and the distinguished E&Y judges who selected me, deem me worthy of this prestigious recognition," said Friend. "Carbonite is my sixth startup since college and each has been more fun than the last.  Frankly, the rewards of being an entrepreneur for 40 years have been enough to make me a very happy man.  So being selected as E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year is really frosting on the cake."  

Friend has been a successful technology entrepreneur for more than 25 years. He previously co-founded five companies: Sonexis, FaxNet, Pilot Software, Computer Pictures Corp. and ARP Instruments. At Carbonite, Friend has driven product innovation and sustained the company's success by raising more than $67 million in capital. Since 2006, Carbonite has backed up more than 39 billion files, restored more than 3.2 billion lost files for its customers, and backs up more than 100 million files every day.

This honor highlights a league of significant accomplishments, including:

• Carbonite CFO Andrew Keenan named as a Boston Business Journal: CFO of the Year honoree
• Mass Technology Leadership Council selected Carbonite CTO Jeff Flowers as the 2009 CTO of the Year
• Carbonite named as a finalist for the 2010 Red Herring 100 North America Award
• The Smaller Business Association of New England, Inc. (SBANE) honored Carbonite as a 2010 New England Innovation Awards Winner
• Carbonite ranked No. 6 in the 2010 Boston Business Journal: Best Places to Work awards for creating a positive work environment that attracts and retains employees through a combination of employee satisfaction, working conditions and company culture
• Voted Shopper's Choice by Computer Shopper readers
• 2009 CNET WebWare 100 Winner

Carbonite launched its online backup service for PC owners in 2006. In the last year, Carbonite enhanced its Remote File Access features beyond Web browsers to mobile accessibility through iPhone®, iPod Touch® and BlackBerry® smartphone devices. In January, the company raised approximately $20 million in a mezzanine financing round bringing total funding to approximately $67 million.

About Carbonite

The Carbonite industry-first offer of unlimited online backup service for a flat, low price revolutionized the market for consumer and small business backup services. Since 2006, the company has backed up more than 39 billion files and has restored more than 3.2 billion lost files for its customers. Carbonite backs up more than 100 million files every day to high-redundancy storage servers in its Boston and Somerville, Mass. data centers.

The Carbonite mission is to provide a simple, affordable, and secure backup solution for the mainstream computer user. Carbonite supports both the Windows and Mac platforms.  Carbonite is available directly at www.carbonite.com, and through international distributors. For more information, please visit www.carbonite.com.

About Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur Of The Year® Awards Program

Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur Of The Year® is the world's most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. The award makes a difference through the unique way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global award of its kind, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 135 cities in 50 countries.

Ernst & Young refers to the global organization of member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young LLP is a client-serving member firm of Ernst & Young Global Limited located in the U.S.

SOURCE Carbonite