Recognizing the power of cyber protection: Acronis gets $250M+ investment, valuation at $2.5B+

A new day is dawning for Acronis and the IT industry. Today we announced that Acronis has secured more than $250 million in a funding round led by CVC Capital Partners VII and other investors, bringing our valuation to more than $2.5 billion.

It’s hard to believe that just 18 months ago, we were sharing the news that we’d reached unicorn status. To more than double our valuation in that period is a tremendous accomplishment in the best of times – but doing so in the midst of a global pandemic is a testament to the power of Acronis’ cyber protection technology and the dedication of our network of more than 50,000 partners.

This funding round comes at a pivotal time, as Acronis has been intensifying our support for service provider partners to deliver cyber protection to businesses of any size.  These funds will immediately be used to further accelerate our current growth strategy.

As a channel-centric company, we’re committing these funds to ensure our service provider partners – from managed service providers (MSPs) and hosters to internet service providers (ISPs) and telcoms – all have the services and support they need to deliver cyber protection to their clients.

Specifically, we’ll be using these funds to:

• Expand our portfolio of integrated cyber protection solutions. In addition to investing in our internal development initiatives, we’ll continue looking at strategic acquisitions that add to our cyber protection capabilities and expertise, such as the four acquisitions we’ve made since the investment round in 2019.
• Encourage the creation of new cyber protection integrations. We’ll continue to recruit third-party developers and independent software developers (ISVs) and encourage them to leverage the Acronis Cyber Platform to develop new, innovative cyber protection solutions.
• Enhance our go-to-market initiatives by growing our partner network, particularly among MSPs. We’ll invest in attracting new service providers and ensuring they are effectively enabled to deliver our award-winning cyber protection to their clients.

To guarantee the success of these three initiatives, Acronis will be adding to our world-class team. We’ll hire new technical talent for our R&D centers in Singapore, Bulgaria, and Israel, as well as Switzerland and the U.S., and expand our global sales, partner account management, and partner success teams.

In the end, our goal is to use this funding to ensure that all service providers have the services and support they need to protect their clients – easily, effectively, and profitably.

The news of today’s announcement is already generating buzz from dedicated industry watchers like Channele2e to global outlets like The Wall Street Journal.

TechCrunch observed how the investment and focus on cyber protection is particularly well-timed. “The funding and Acronis’s strategy to double down on growing its business comes at a key moment in the world of cybersecurity. The bigger landscape in the world of business has seen a huge shift in the last year to more people working remotely and across a wider set of geographies and devices. Although that shift was pushed along by the Covid-19 pandemic, many believe that the longer-term effect will be a very different working environment, with a greater acceptance that less people will be spending all of their time in their offices, and that it won’t necessarily impact productivity.”

Adapting to meet the needs of the IT industry and our channel partners has been part of our history from the start.

When Acronis was founded in Singapore in 2003, it was with the stated mission of protecting all data, wherever it lives. Our solutions were geared to provide the most reliable data protection, as we mainstreamed the use of full-disk backups among consumers.

When new technologies appeared that could enhance the protection of data, such as using blockchain technology to provide proof of data authenticity, we were the first to employ those new practices. As a result, we earned a reputation as the industry innovator.

As data use and access changed – and, with those changes, the risks to data – we adapted to meet the needs of our partners and customers. The new strains of ransomware appeared that first targeted backup files and software to prevent a reliable recovery. Acronis developed natively integrated solutions that unified best-of-breed backup with cutting-edge cybersecurity, establishing what IDC calls “the new IT discipline of cyber protection.”

Making those cyber protection solutions available and affordable to all is now our goal, and partnering with partners is the most effective approach to making it happen. That’s why we’re committed to empowering service providers.

We started the year by launching our Global/Local strategy, which will expand our presence worldwide to 111 data centers by the end of this year.  This approach ensures service providers can meet the ever-changing local compliance, data sovereignty, and performance requirements of their clients.

In February, we introduced our #CyberFit Partner Program to support the development of our cloud-focused partners with greater performance-based benefits and financial incentives.

Then, in March, we made available a new version of Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, enabling partners to deliver comprehensive cyber protection for all workloads for little to no upfront cost.

In April, we launched a new partner portal that provides easy access to the content, tools, and training that can help partners succeed.

Each of these steps has helped Acronis enter a new era: One focused on helping partners protect their clients while building their business with unique and differentiated services.

This new funding will allow us to aggressively push that new era forward – providing partners with additional sales and marketing resources, faster and localized technical support, dedicated partner success managers, and local data centers in 111 locations worldwide.

We look forward to the new era of cyber protection and invite service providers to join us.