Cohesity, a leader in data security and management, has announced the successful closure of a $150 million Series F funding round. This round was backed by heavyweight strategic investors, IBM and Nvidia. Additionally, Cohesity has expanded its partnership with IBM, focusing on bolstering cyber resilience capabilities across hybrid cloud environments.
Before the Series F round, Cohesity had raised a total of $805 million in funding over seven rounds. The most recent round was led by Nvidia on March 18, 2024. In a Series E funding round on April 9, 2020, the startup raised $250 million, with DFJ Growth, Foundation Capital, Greenspring Associates, and Wing Venture Capital leading the investment.
IBM joined Nvidia as a strategic investor for Cohesity’s Series F financing round. This funding follows Cohesity’s recent acquisition of the data protection business of Veritas. The deal, unanimously approved by both Cohesity’s and Veritas’ boards of directors, is expected to close by the end of 2024, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. The combined company is valued at approximately $7 billion and aims to increase its share of a growing $30 billion market.
Cohesity’s current marquee investors, including Softbank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital, Wing Venture Capital, and Premji Invest, will continue to support the combined entity. Existing Veritas shareholders, including majority owner Carlyle, will become shareholders in Cohesity after the close of the transaction.
In addition to the funding, IBM has integrated Cohesity capabilities with its cyber resilience platform to strengthen the joint customers’ ability to recover from data breaches and cyberattacks.
Sanjay Poonen, Cohesity CEO and President, stated, “IBM is a powerful partner in the enterprise cloud and IT infrastructure market. They bring decades of expertise to our relationship, in addition to their investment in our business to help fund incremental research and development to offer customers even stronger cyber resilience.”
According to the most recent Cost of a Data Breach report from IBM Security, the global average cost of a data breach surged by 15% over the last three years, reaching $4.45 million in 2023. To address this issue, the partnership between Cohesity and IBM brings together Cohesity DataProtect with IBM’s Storage Defender Solution to help their joint customers protect, monitor, manage, and recover data.
Launched last June, IBM Storage Defender is a multi-tier service for cyber resilience, designed to help enterprises protect and defend data against threats such as ransomware across on-premises and cloud environments. The service integrates data protection from Cohesity, alongside IBM Storage Protect backup technology.
Ric Lewis, Senior Vice President of Infrastructure at IBM, commented, “Data breaches continue to be one of the biggest threats organizations face to advancing business outcomes. We’re excited to deepen our collaboration with Cohesity to bring clients innovative end-to-end software-defined solutions designed to increase their cyber resilience and help avoid business interruptions.”
IBM Storage Defender utilizes AI and event monitoring across multiple storage platforms to protect organizational data layers from risks like ransomware, human error, and sabotage. It is expected to soon offer cyber vault and clean room features with automated recovery functions to help companies restore business-critical data swiftly.
Cohesity and IBM’s extended partnership underscores a commitment to delivering robust cyber resilience solutions, empowering organizations to safeguard their data assets effectively. With this latest round of funding and strengthened collaboration, Cohesity is poised for continued innovation and growth in the data management and security space.