Highlights:

  • Keepit stated that the funds from this round will support its efforts to achieve this, with plans to enhance its product, expand its data centers, and grow its go-to-market operations.
  • Its platform includes features like one-click data restoration, job monitoring, API support, custom retention, access control, audit logging, and data monitoring.

Recently, a cloud-native data protection and backup company based in Denmark, Keepit A/S secured USD 50 million in its latest funding round.

The round, led by One Peak and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, brings Keepit’s total venture funding to approximately USD 90 million. The financing spans three rounds: a USD 30 million Series A in September 2020, a USD 10 million Series B at a later date, and the recent Series C.

Keepit is also reported to have secured USD 225 million through a debt financing round from Silicon Valley Bank in March 2023.

The funding has allowed the startup to develop a specialized, vendor-independent cloud infrastructure platform for software-as-a-service data protection. This platform enables enterprises to securely back up and safeguard critical data, ensuring it can be reliably recovered when needed. Keepit claims its service is more straightforward to deploy than competing data protection solutions, with customers able to get started in just five minutes.

The platform provides a wide range of features, including instant one-click data restoration, job monitoring, API support, customizable retention policies, access control, audit logging, and data monitoring.

Keepit states that its data protection cloud is built to support numerous leading enterprise SaaS applications, including Google Workspace, Zendesk, Salesforce, and Microsoft solutions such as 365, Entra ID, Azure DevOps, Dynamics 365, and the Power Platform.

Steve McDowell of NAND Research Inc. told in an interview that Keepit operates in a highly competitive data backup market, making it challenging to stand out. However, he noted that the company differentiates itself in a few key ways. Unlike many competitors, Keepit owns its own cloud data centers, located in Europe, Australia, and North America, where it claims to store backups for over 5 million users globally.

“This gives Keepit control over their costs. So, it can pass on those lower costs to its customers with its simpler, per-use pricing, regardless of data usage. That’s unique in the industry and allows enterprises to predict their expenses,” McDowell said.

The analyst noted that another distinctive feature of Keepit is its blockchain infrastructure, which it utilizes to detect changes in customer data and ensure immutability. However, he pointed out that it’s debatable whether this approach is superior to those employed by its competitors.

“It have a compelling solution for SaaS backup, but it’s operating in a tough competitive environment against an aggressive set of well-established players. The onus is on Keepit to show more differentiation,” McDowell said.

Keepit stated that the funds from this round will support its efforts to achieve this goal, with plans to use them to improve its product, expand its data centers, and strengthen its go-to-market operations.

To enhance its product, the funds will help Keepit expand its coverage of SaaS workloads and develop additional data management tools and intelligence features. While the startup did not explicitly mention it, the reference to “intelligence capabilities” likely pertains to generative artificial intelligence features it has previously hinted at, which could assist in managing backups or data analytics.

David Klein, Co-founder and Managing Partner of One Peak, stated that he is investing in Keepit because the demand for secure, independent SaaS data protection has never been more critical. He insisted. “Keepit stands out as a leader through its innovative platform.”

The latest funding round could position Keepit as a potential acquisition target for larger companies in the future. This year, there has been significant consolidation in the data protection industry, with Salesforce Inc. acquiring Own Company Inc., Veeam Software Group GmbH purchasing Alcion Inc., and Commvault Systems Inc. acquiring Clumio Inc.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Keepit is eventually acquired, but it will likely be a while until that happens. But with $50 million in funding, it has plenty of money to make its offering a success, and it may even use some of that cash to make its own acquisition,” McDowell said.