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Data protection and sync/share provider eFolder, which specializes in working with managed service providers, and Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) provider Axcient revealed July 27 that they are merging. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Neither privately owned company would say which one actually bought the other, but since the company will be headquartered at eFolder’s office in Denver and eFolder CEO Matt Nachtrab has been named CEO of the combined companies, one can ascertain that Mountain View, Calif.-based Axcient wasn’t the one making these key decisions.
eFolder’s Kevin Hoffman will serve as Chief Technology Officer and Axcient CEO and founder Justin Moore will continue as Chief Strategy Officer.
The deal brings together two relatively young companies that, to an extent, had been competitors in the MSP and mid-range markets. Their main products, however, do complement each other and work together well in storage systems.
Merger, Not an Acquisition
“We’re looking at it as a merger,” Nachtrab, who has only been with eFolder since February, told eWEEK. “We’re keeping both brands, and we’ve invited all eFolder and Axcient employees to come on the ride with us. Together we’re taking the strengths we both have and will run together to try and dominate the backup market.”
Key competitors in this sector include Datto and StorageCraft, which recently made an acquisition of its own in Exablox.
eFolder’s product line is designed to make it simple for MSPs and their small- and medium-sized business clients to protect data, sync and share information and recover servers. It does this with products that include eFolder Replibit, Anchor and Cloudfinder.
Axcient is proficient at recovering data following a system shutdown or other unexpected event. Its DRaaS package makes it relatively easy for SMBs and mid-market customers to replicate and recover entire an IT infrastructure in hours rather than days, as is standard in most conventional data recovery systems.
Synergy Between Companies, Products
“There’s a good synergy between Axcient and eFolder,” Nachtrab said. “Axcient brings to the table a great product that fills in where eFolder was weakest.”
Both companies sell virtually all of their products and services through the channel, Moore told eWEEK. The combined company will have close to 4,000 MSPs, including more than 90 percent of the 100 largest MSPs in North America. Bringing together best practices for channel acquisition, channel enablement and channel support will enable the company to help MSPs increase revenue, improve margin and achieve higher levels of customer retention, the company said.
“Axcient joining forces with eFolder creates the most complete platform for protecting data and ensuring the availability of IT systems,” Moore said.”MSPs and mid-market customers now have a single vendor they can trust to ensure employees always have access to the applications and information they need.”
eFolder, or eFolder-Axcient (“We may decide on another name at some point, we’ll have to see,” Nachtrab told eWEEK) is now working to create a new, cloud-managed suite of products and services that will draw from all the IP at hand inside both companies.
Will Continue Operations Globally
The combined entity will continue operations in Denver, Mountain View, Austin, Texas, and Smolensk, Russia. In total, it will employ about 300 employees, of which about 100 are in research and development.
Together, the companies will have more than 50,000 customers and 400,000 endpoints under management.
The transaction is expected to close in the next few months.