From bootstrapped to unicorn: How this cloud data protection company beat the odds

Silicon Valley is seen as the birthplace of many tech startup successes, with household names like Apple, Netflix, and Google headquartered in the area.

But success doesn’t come easy; each tale of triumph isn’t complete without bouts of struggle. One of the Bay Area’s most quoted sayings is “fail fast, fail often.”

As such, there are many ways for startups to crash and burn, and businesses often have to overcome these challenges.

One company that has beaten the odds is Druva, a Silicon Valley-based data protection and management firm. Bootstrapping for the first three years, it has now raised US$328 million in venture funding.

Democratizing data recovery

Founded in India by Jaspreet Singh, Milind Borate, and Ramani Kothandaraman, Druva started out in 2007 aiming to disrupt the disaster recovery market by providing simpler and more affordable solutions.

“Disaster recovery was a critical problem for enterprises then […] and was solved only for large enterprises because of the cost and complexity involved,” explains Singh, who is also the company’s CEO.

Jaspreet Singh, CEO and co-founder of Druva / Photo credit: Druva

Workplace crises like ransomware attacks and data loss could cost businesses nearly US$200 billion, so it’s vital that companies invest in disaster recovery solutions to combat these.

Druva helps customers who are considering or are in the process of moving their business to the cloud. Singh claims that the company takes a very different approach from legacy players, who use hardware boxes to back up data and have expectations that customers will maintain the hardware and complex software deployment.

“As data becomes more fragmented with the adoption of more cloud services, the greater the need [is] for a centralized management approach to ensure proper visibility and compliance,” he says. Druva enables this by allowing enterprises to manage all their data from a single, central platform.

The long road to success

Druva achieved unicorn status earlier this year, but it wasn’t an effortless journey.

“The first 18 months at Druva were challenging,” Singh shares.

The team bootstrapped the company initially, with barely US$37,000 to work with. It was only in 2010, when the firm received initial funding from Sequoia Capital, that it was able to embark on its current course. Singh moved to Silicon Valley shortly after to build Druva’s new headquarters.

To get to where it is now, Druva took three pivots. It began by building a product for financial services, but it soon realized that few people were willing to pay for high-end software products from a non-funded company based in India.

Druva then scaled down to focus on recovery solutions for remote datasets and, in a bid to build a generational company, shifted to offering native cloud applications in 2013.

Photo credit: 123RF

“Every startup’s journey starts with betting on a trend no one else is willing to bet on. Druva’s big bet was going all in on AWS,” Singh says.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and interfaces, and Druva uses it to develop its cloud management and protection service.

Today, Druva works with a wide variety of clients from all over the world – including hotel chain Marriott, brewer Carlsberg, and US space agency NASA – which have helped drive the company’s growth.

“One of our earliest customers was NASA, but it was so secure we couldn’t even get in to meet with [them],” Singh shares. “The confidence we received from NASA and customers like them helped drive us to create the set of offerings and robust security measures found in our platform today.”

According to the CEO, the biggest challenge he faced in his entrepreneurial journey was finding the right team to grow the business.

“Finding the right people to fit your needs and the company culture, understanding their motivation, and providing the right amount of inspiration requires equal parts art and science,” he observes. “But when you find the right combination of people, it can be one of the most rewarding parts of the job.”

Looking to the future

Druva has come a long way since its launch and is working to expand globally. It recently opened an office in Singapore and received accreditation from the city-state’s Infocomm Media Development Authority.

The accreditation process, Singh notes, is a great platform for innovative venture companies like Druva to gain awareness and acceptance across Singapore government agencies.

“The technical robustness and security of our products were thoroughly vetted, as well as the ability of our business operations and finances to successfully scale and support with the needs of our customers in the region,” he shares. The accreditation process also helped the firm identify and implement areas of improvement, enhancing their solutions.

Moving forward, Druva is looking to empower customers to leverage their data, and it will focus on areas like data protection, security, and automation.

“Organizations are more data-driven than ever, and data is driving core initiatives such as innovation and customer experience,” points out Singh. “We are leading the way by creating a platform that spans traditional on-premise data sources and the new data stores of the cloud to centralize crucial protection and management services.”

Druva is a data protection and management company that uses native cloud technologies. At present, it is working toward improving the data resiliency of its customers through its various services. Learn more about its solutions through this webinar.