Secure Data Backup & Recovery - Rubrik

Last week a software startup named Rubrik went public at the NYSE. Rubrik is a Microsoft-backed cyber security and data management company. It's slogan is "Zero Trust Data Security". It offers:

• Data Resilience (keep your data secure and readily available, air-gapped, immutable, access-controlled backups to withstand cyberattacks, malicious insiders, and operational disruptions).
• Data Observability (continuously monitor data risks like sensitive data exposure and detect cyber threats like ransomware).
• Data Remediation (automation, quarantining, and cyber recovery capabilities to contain threats and rapidly recover apps, files, and objects while avoiding malware reinfection).

It reminded me of the backup-recovery scene during the 1980s and 1990s when I worked at IBM and Oracle. That was pre-internet and pre-distributed era of data management, mostly confined to structured data, but mission-critical to large enterprises. The backup-recovery utilities were like an afterthought. We employed very junior programmers to write code for these function. No wonder, these programs were buggy and did not work very well. Companies like BMC in Houston took advantage of these weaknesses and built better backup-recovery routines for DB2.

Today's scene is very different. Cyber crimes are rampant and data breach at large companies is happening almost daily. Hence there is the need for robust data security software providing highly reliable backups free of malware infections for rapid recovery. Rubrik fills this space.

The company started ten years ago in 2014 by current CEO Bipul Sinha and three other founders. Lightspeed ventures backed them with $362M investment owning about 25%. Last week, its IPO raised $752M with a valuation of $5.6B. Last year it acquired an Israeli cloud data security company called Laminar Security. Also last year it introduced Ruby, a GenAI tool that recommends how to isolate and recover data impacted by a ransomware attack, that was detected by a Rubrik Anomaly Detection engine. The company intends to deploy more AI solutions for faster speed of detection and recovery. Microsoft chose them as a strategic partner for cybersecurity. They claim about 1700 customers who deploy the solutions in cloud or Saas mode.

While subscription revenue has gone up to 91% of revenue from 59% two years ago, they had a net loss of $354M last year. Their challenge is to make this a profitable business, but their fast adoption rate will make that possible in time.

I am happy to see a new startup addressing the boring (but very critical) space of backup-recovery on a secure platform.