Veeam, a Swiss data management company that offers backup and disaster recovery services for enterprises, is being acquired by venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners in a $5 billion all-cash deal.

Founded in 2006 by Russian entrepreneurs Ratmir Timashev and Andrei Baronov, Veeam is one of numerous data management platforms that work across multiple clouds, on-premises servers, and hybrid setups. The company claims some 365,000 customers and $1 billion in annual sales.

That Insight Partners has elected to buy Veeam perhaps should not come as a total surprise — the New York-based investor became a minority shareholder in Veeam back in 2013 as part of a broader business partnership, before leading on Veeam’s first major institutional funding round in January 2019 to the tune of $500 million.

Enterprising

While Insight Partners has some notable exits in its portfolio, including Twitter and Shopify, the investment firm is no stranger to acquiring enterprise-focused companies outright — earlier this week it snapped up IoT security company Armis in a $1.1 billion deal, and last year it bought a controlling stake in cybersecurity company Recorded Future for more than $780 million.

It’s also worth noting here that Insight Partners recently led a $14 million investment in cloud-native data management platform Kasten, which is a similar proposition to Veeam. This followed shortly after other major deals in the space including Veeam rival Rubrik, which raised $261 million at a $3.3 billion valuation, while SoftBank led a $250 million investment in Veeam competitor Cohesity.

As more companies migrate to the cloud, this presents lucrative opportunities for companies to enter the fray with the promise of protection for mission-critical data. However, many companies prefer to adopt a hybrid approach, combining public and private clouds alongside on-premises infrastructure — it’s all about being agile and having a competitive advantage by offering data management and backup facilities for all scenarios. Under the auspices of Insight Partners, Veeam said that it plans to expand into new markets and double down on its hybrid cloud offering — a move that is already well underway.

Just last month, Veeam announced native support for Amazon Web Services (AWS), while Azure support is on the way too. Moreover, this acquisition — which is expected to close in Q1 2020 — means that Veeam will now be a U.S. company, which will go some way toward helping it grow in the U.S.

“Veeam’s strong growth, coupled with high customer retention, unparalleled data management solutions, and the opportunities to expand services into new markets, make Veeam one of the most exciting software companies in the world today,” noted Insight Partners managing director Mike Triplett. “We are committed to supporting Veeam’s next phase of leadership and growth in the United States, continued market-share leadership position in EMEA, and continued global expansion.”

This acquisition has also ushered in a number of executive changes. Earlier this week, VP of product strategy Danny Allan was promoted to the newly created chief technology officer position. But the big news today is that Veeam’s executive VP of operations, William H. Largent, will now replace Baronov as CEO. Largent had previously served as CEO for a year between 2016 and 2017, so this promotion sees him return to familiar territory.

A U.S.-based leadership team for a U.S.-headquartered company does make sense, after all. Both of Veeam’s cofounders will step down from the board of directors once the acquisitions is complete.

“Veeam has enjoyed rapid global growth over the last decade and we see tremendous opportunity for future growth, particularly in the U.S. market,” Largent said. “With the acquisition, we are excited that our current U.S. workforce of more than 1,200 will be expanded and strengthened to acquire and support more customers.”