Syncsort's Data Protection Business Acquired by Executive Management, Bedford Venture Partners and Windcrest Partners

WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J., Oct. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Syncsort, a global leader in Big Data software, today announced that its Data Protection business has been acquired by members of its executive management team, industry veterans Robert Belau and Ken Barth of Bedford Venture Partners, and long-time Syncsort investor Windcrest Partners. This completes a planned separation announced earlier this year to enable greater focus and concentrated investment in each line of business.

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The investor group has formed a new Data Protection company as part of the acquisition, and deployed additional capital to accelerate the development and growth of the business. Syncsort's Data Protection business has over 1,200 customers and partners worldwide, and last week successfully launched its new cloud-based technology platform and category-defining ECX Enterprise Catalog software. After an initial transition period during which time the new company will continue to use the Syncsort trademark, it will unveil a new company name and branding.

"This is a fantastic acquisition by the management team, Bedford Venture Partners and Windcrest Partners as it will provide both Syncsort and the new Data Protection company with additional investment capital to accelerate growth," said Lonne Jaffe, Syncsort's CEO. "Building on our acquisition of Circle Computer Group last week and the success of our new Hadoop product line, we're moving ahead to advance our Big Iron to Big Data growth strategy through both organic and inorganic investments."

Flavio Santoni and his management team will continue to lead the new Data Protection company. "We are very excited about working with Flavio and the rest of his organization to expand on their impressive accomplishments," said Robert Belau, Managing Partner of Bedford Venture Partners. "We've been tremendously impressed with the whole team's deep industry expertise and vision for the future of data protection. Last week's release of ECX opens up a brand new market by providing the deep insight and analytics that storage customers need to increase efficiency and accelerate the adoption of snapshot technology. And this is just the beginning."

Windcrest Partners, a long-time investor in Syncsort, is an investor in the new Data Protection business. Michael and James Gellert will serve on the board of directors of the new company. James Gellert commented, "After many years as investors in Syncsort, we have a very high regard for the company.  We are excited to have the opportunity to back the management team of the Data Protection business as they begin their next stage as an independent company."

In addition to the acquisition of the Data Protection business and Syncsort's acquisition of the Circle Computer Group, Syncsort recently forged strategic technology and go-to-market partnerships with Cloudera, Tableau, Fujitsu, and Appfluent to further advance its vision of accessing and offloading legacy data platforms using powerful and less expensive next generation systems such as Apache Hadoop.

About Syncsort

Syncsort provides data-intensive organizations across the big data continuum with a smarter way to collect and process the ever-expanding data avalanche.  With thousands of deployments across all major platforms, including mainframe, Syncsort helps customers around the world to overcome the architectural limits of today's data integration and Hadoop environments, empowering their organizations to drive better business outcomes in less time, with fewer resources and lower total cost of ownership. For more information visit www.syncsort.com.

About Bedford Venture Partners

Bedford Venture Partners is a private investment partnership led by industry veterans Robert Belau and Ken Barth. Mr. Belau was formerly the co-founder and President of Predictive Systems (NASD:PRDS), a global technology services company.  Mr. Barth was the founder and CEO of Tek-Tools Software, which was acquired by SolarWinds (NASD:SWI) in 2010.

About Windcrest Partners

Windcrest Partners is a New York based evergreen venture capital and private equity partnership. The Firm invests in private companies at all stages of development and seeks to partner with talented management teams and innovative entrepreneurs.

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Media Contacts:

Michael Kornspan
Syncsort Incorporated
Director, Corporate Communications
Tel: 201-930-8216
[email protected]

Joanne Hogue
Smart Connections PR 
Partner
Tel: 410-658-8246
[email protected]

SOURCE Syncsort