Highlights:

  • Veeam’s software allows customers to create backup copies of their data in Amazon Web Services environments, Kubernetes clusters, and other systems.
  • Alcion claims that customers can begin backing up their Microsoft 365 environments within 10 minutes of registering.

Recently, Veeam Software Group has acquired Alcion Inc., a startup offering a platform designed to safeguard Microsoft 365 environments against data loss.

The specifics of the agreement have not been disclosed.

Veeam is the leading global provider of enterprise backup and recovery software. Gartner Inc. reports that the company held a 15.1% market share last year, generating USD 1.5 billion in revenue. Veeam states that its customer base exceeds half a million organizations, including 74% of the Global 2000.

The company’s software allows customers to create backup copies of data in their Amazon Web Services environments, Kubernetes clusters, and other systems. Veeam also provides tools for rapid recovery of these backups in case of data loss. Administrators can store backups in an immutable or undeletable format to guarantee their availability when needed.

Veeam’s data protection solution for Kubernetes is built on technology acquired through its 2020 purchase of the startup Kasten Inc. This company was established in 2017 by Niraj Tolia and Vaibhav Kamra, who are also the founders of Alcion, Veeam’s latest acquisition.s

San Francisco-based Alcion has raised USD 29 million in venture funding, with the bulk—USD 21 million—acquired last year in a Series A round led by Veeam. Alcion’s core offering is a cloud platform designed to back up data stored in Microsoft 365 by businesses.

A key advantage of the platform is its straightforward interface. Alcion claims that customers can begin backing up their Microsoft 365 environments within 10 minutes of signing up. The platform requires no technical training or installation of additional software on company systems, a process that can be time-consuming for large organizations.

Certain ransomware variants are designed to target both the primary data and backup copies of a company’s information. Without backups, administrators cannot restore encrypted files. To prevent these types of attacks, Alcion’s platform delays the deletion of backups for two weeks after a user requests it, allowing the option to cancel the deletion during that time.

The platform integrates with Microsoft’s Defender 365 cybersecurity tool. When this product identifies malware in a Microsoft 365 environment, Alcion automatically backs up user data to enable future recovery. Additionally, the platform schedules backups during peak business hours to ensure that information generated during those times is backed up promptly after creation.

“We leveraged powerful AI techniques to learn user behavior, schedule backups intelligently, remove malware, detect ransomware, and proactively schedule backups when threat signals are detected,” Niraj Tolia, Co-founder and CEO of Alcion, stated in a blog post.

As part of the acquisition, Tolia will join Veeam as the chief technology officer. In this role, he will oversee the development of a product named Veeam Data Cloud, which the company introduced in February. This is a managed data protection solution tailored for Microsoft 365 and Azure environments.