Veeam Acquires Alcion, Takes Aim at Next Level Data Protection

Microsoft 365’s 21 million or so users should be feeling safer these days.

Barely a month after releasing Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8, Veeam® Software, the leader by market share in data resilience, has now announced it is acquiring security-first, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven data management startup Alcion Inc.

“I am thrilled to announce the acquisition of Alcion by Veeam!” wrote Alcion CEO and Co-Founder Niraj Tolia in a formal announcement on the company’s website. “As we begin the next chapter of our journey within Veeam, we are very excited to join forces with a company that we deeply respect, and whose culture and vision has inspired us in many ways. Together, we will continue to advance the state of the art in modern data management and cement our lead in this space.”

Augmenting Veeam’s Data Protection Efforts for Microsoft 365

This acquisition, whose terms are undisclosed as of press time, should be great news for Microsoft 365 customers given Alcion’s proprietary platform that lets customers of the former create backups via a simple interface. The platform is so simple and easy to use that even nontechnical users can start creating Microsoft 365 backups in as little as 10 minutes. There is no need to install any additional software as well, saving companies time and resources in the process.

Alcion’s platform should augment the recently released Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8, which delivers the most comprehensive and flexible immutability for Microsoft 365 data, making certain backup data is safe from potential changes or deletions so that its original integrity stays intact. The same platform should also complement nicely the next generation of Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 that provides backup-as-a-service (BaaS) for Microsoft 365 to enable data resilience and powerful data protection and security technology.

“There’s been overwhelming response from customers that they want Veeam capabilities delivered as a service,” said Brandt Urban, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Cloud Sales at Veeam. “And I think Alcion brings a ton of cloud expertise in cloud-native application design and using that to accelerate our innovation is going to be fantastic. I’m really excited about the Alcion team bringing their design language and their automation capabilities to take us to that next tier with Veeam Data Cloud and being able to add new capabilities to our existing offerings and more quickly get new applications into Veeam Data Cloud.”

Alcion and Veeam: Culminating a Shared History

Seattle-based Veeam and San Francisco-headquartered Alcion share an intertwined history, with the former an investor in the latter’s seed funding. Veeam was also the lead investor in Alcion’s USD $21 million Series A funding round that closed last fall.

Additionally, Alcion Co-Founder Vaibhav Karma and the aforementioned Tolia also co-founded Kasten, which Veeam also acquired in 2020. Kasten is a data protection platform purpose-built for Kubernetes that has expanded Veeam’s data protection technologies. With Alcion’s acquisition, Tolia will be returning to the Seattle-based data protection powerhouse as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO), taking over from interim CTO Dave Russell, who took the mantle from industry veteran Danny Allan after he left the company back in January.

“Remember, I’ve been a part of Veeam in the past through a previous acquisition,” Tolia noted. “So, when Veeam reached out, we knew the company, we knew the culture, we knew how we fit in. Internally, we’ve told the team this is a milestone for us on the journey for what we care about. The previous two products I built in different companies, including things I did 10-plus years ago, are still shipping. I believe in building lasting businesses and technology.”

As Veeam’s CTO, Tolia is expected to take charge of further developing Veeam Data Cloud, a fully managed data protection service for Microsoft 365 and Azure environments that the company launched only last February. And it appears the former Alcion CEO is looking forward to this challenge.

“I speak for the entire Alcion team when I say that we are truly excited about the new voyage ahead of us as a part of Veeam,” he said in the same blog he wrote for Alcion. “Our charter is to continue to invest in and build out the Veeam Data Cloud platform. Combining the AI and Security capabilities of the Alcion platform with the scale of VDC—the fastest-growing Veeam product ever—is going to deliver great value to every Alcion and Veeam customer, current and future. We look forward to working with you on this journey and continuing Veeam’s mission to empower data resilience to keep businesses running and secure.”

Taking Data Protection to the Next Level and Beyond

Aside from enhancing its Microsoft 365 solutions, Veeam appears to also be setting up major upgrades to its data protection capabilities, at least according to Tom May, CEO at Different Dev, a Veeam-focused professional services company.

Much of this upgrade, May posits, will be on further incorporating AI into data protection—something Alcion has plenty of experience with under Tolia, whom May predicts will be a huge asset to the Seattle-based industry leader.

“I know that Veeam is setting its sights on kind of that next level, and I know a lot of it is AI-based,” May told CRN. “[Tolia is] bringing his team with him, and he’s already brought two big products to market. This will be good. Alcion has a focus on AI, and I know Veeam is really focusing on AI. When we were at this year’s VeeamON conference, they were talking about and demoing AI in the console and different things. Well, now they’re strategically picking up a company that I’m not too familiar with but which has backup tech and which can bring AI intelligence into the Veeam Suite.”

Indeed, Tolia might be on to something about this new voyage Alcion will be taking under Veeam. And that ought to be good news to Microsoft 365 users and Veeam clients in general.