Commvault CEO Sanjay Mirchandani. Image: Commvault
Commvault’s latest strategic acquisition aims to differentiate and enhance the company’s data storage and management offerings.
On Wednesday (4 September), Commvault announced its intention to acquire software company Hedvig in a bid to strengthen its data storage business.
Commvault, which provides software for the management of data across cloud and on-premises environments, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Hedvig in a $225m deal, which includes the purchase price and ongoing employee retention.
At present, Commvault’s software manages more than 600 petabytes of data, according to its website. The company was founded in 1988 in New Jersey and now employs more than 2,300 people worldwide.
The Hedvig deal is seen as a way for Commvault to jump-start growth after shares fell by 27pc this year.
Rapid data growth
The firm said that recent research by Gartner predicts that, by 2023, software-defined storage (SDS) instantiations of vendor storage systems running in the cloud will become the dominant method of building multi-cloud storage infrastructures.
Commvault said: “This move to cloud and multi-cloud environments, together with cloud-native applications is driving competitive advantage for companies of all sizes, yet the acceleration of data fragmentation is negatively impacting business outcomes.
“This rapid data growth, generated from a variety of sources stored both within on-premises environments and in the cloud will continue to create significant governance, security and management challenges.”
The company plans to acquire Hedvig to differentiate and enhance its offerings, broadening its addressable market.
Commvault CEO Sanjay Mirchandani said: “This acquisition demonstrates how Commvault is leading the way towards the intersection of storage and data management.
“We believe joining Hedvig’s innovative software-defined storage capabilities with Commvault’s industry-leading data protection reduces fragmentation and leapfrogs other solutions in the market.”
Hedvig deal
Hedvig, which was founded in 2012 by Avinash Lakshman, addresses data sovereignty problems stemming from data governance laws and enables hybrid cloud and multi-cloud capabilities natively. Prior to the acquisition, Hedvig had raised $52m in funding.
Lakshman said: “Being completely software-based, the Hedvig platform can span multiple data centres across multiple physical geographies including disparate cloud environments. This may be the most comprehensive solution ever unleashed into enterprise data centres and public cloud environments.”
Mirchandani added that Hedvig’s technology is “in its prime” and has already been market tested.
“We believe that the convergence of storage, multi-cloud and cloud-native technologies, combined with our leadership in data management, will accelerate the movement towards modern applications built on containers and microservices,” Mirchandani said.
“Commvault will set the bar for the unification of storage and data management for the future.”
The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020, subject to certain closing conditions. Hedvig’s employees will remain in their Santa Clara office, which is a five-minute walk from Commvault’s office.
