Scale Venture Partners Picks Axcient as the Leader in SMB Data Protection and Continuity with $15.5M Investment

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Axcient, the award-winning innovator of comprehensive data backup, business continuity, and disaster recovery services to the Small and Mid-Sized Business (SMB) market, today announced that it has raised $15.5M in new funding. The Series C round was led by Scale Venture Partners with previous investors Allegis Capital, Peninsula Ventures, and Thomvest Ventures participating, bringing the company's total funding to date to $33.5M. Rory O'Driscoll, managing director, Scale Venture Partners, joins the board with this investment.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100504/AXCIENTLOGO)

Axcient is transforming the way SMBs protect, access and restore their data and applications, and is seeing widespread migration away from traditional software and hardware solutions, such as the combination of Symantec BackupExec with tape or NAS, to Axcient's hybrid cloud platform. In 2010, Axcient achieved close to 800% revenue growth and for 2011 the company is on track to grow recurring revenues by 400% over the previous year. By the end of 2011, Axcient expects to be managing two billion customer files and over 100,000 customer laptops and servers. In addition to its rapidly growing customer base, Axcient has added close to 1,000 partners across North America including larger strategic partnerships with companies such as HP. Axcient has also announced numerous major platform enhancements over the past year, including numerous integrations with leading remote monitoring and management (RMM) platforms and professional service automation (PSA) tools.

"With this new infusion of capital combined with the rapidly growing adoption of our platform, Axcient is positioned to transform an industry that has been dominated by legacy players for almost two decades," said Justin Moore, founder and CEO, Axcient. "We are planning to aggressively expand our service and provide SMBs with even simpler ways to access their data and applications from any device. We want to bring Axcient to SMBs around the world and, following our successful launch into Canada earlier this year, we will be expanding into Europe in 2012."    

In addition to expanding its platform, Axcient plans to triple its sales and marketing department and aggressively target the millions of businesses that still rely on legacy tape systems to protect their data. Axcient currently employs more than 80 people and expects to more than double its team over the next 18 months.

In today's competitive landscape, SMBs cannot afford to lose valuable uptime or dedicate limited resources to manage complex or cobbled together business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. With Axcient, SMBs are able to meet the challenges of protecting their data and maintaining total uptime with a single, easy to use platform that combines the best elements of an on-premise solution with the cost-savings of cloud computing.

"We have a long track record investing in companies that deliver a high-powered, cost-effective Software-as-a-Service solution (SaaS) to their customers while disrupting incumbents," said Rory O'Driscoll, managing director, ScaleVP. "Axcient is ideally situated to lead the next generation of data backup and business continuity in the SMB market, and disrupt an industry that has been dominated by outmoded solutions for too long. The company's proven track record and rapid growth has positioned it as the clear leader. We are thrilled to lead this new round of funding to support Axcient's future growth."

In addition to this recent investment in Axcient, ScaleVP's portfolio includes Box.net, DocuSign, ExactTarget, Hubspot, LiveScribe, RingCentral and Vitrue.

"Even at a time when the economy faces continued uncertainty, Scale Venture Partners has recognized the significance of the Axcient vision and supports our industry-leading platform," said Moore. "While we did not need additional funding, we didn't want to pass up the opportunity to add a great partner and firm to our team. This investment will accelerate our strategy, power our continued growth, and offer us increased opportunities to service our customers and expand our award-winning offerings. We are excited to have Rory join the board."

Axcient has been recently honored with more than 10 prestigious industry awards for its innovative technology and channel-focused business model, including HP's Technology Partner of the Year Award, CRN's Emerging Vendor of the Year Award, Red Herring's Top 100 Award, and Business Solutions Magazine's Best Channel Product and Best Channel Vendor Awards. 

About Axcient 
Axcient delivers a unified platform for backup, business continuity, and disaster recovery that offers unprecedented ease of use and uptime to the SMB market. Built from the ground up as an all-in-one solution, Axcient combines the best elements of an on-premise solution with the cost savings of a cloud-based service. With over a petabyte under management, Axcient helps thousands of companies protect their data and stay up and running, including those in heavily regulated industries such as healthcare, legal, and financial services. To learn more, visit www.axcient.com and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and our Blog.

About Scale Venture Partners
Based in Foster City, California, the ScaleVP team is a long-standing partnership with a consistent, top quartile track record of returns. The ScaleVP team's collaborative and active approach provides entrepreneurs a competitive advantage for growth and category leadership. Representative portfolio companies include Alimera Sciences, Box.net, Brightroll, Docusign, Everyday Health, ExactTarget, Hubspot, IPC The Hospitalist Company, mBlox, NComputing, Omniture, and ScanSafe. For more information, visit www.scalevp.com.

SOURCE Axcient