The News: Cohesity has completed its Series F fundraising round to the tune of a reported $150 million, with IBM and NVIDIA notably serving as strategic investors. The announcement will further the Cohesity and IBM collaboration on IBM Storage Defender, a solution for cyber-resiliency. It will also further Cohesity’s collaboration with NVIDIA on generative AI, specifically via NVIDIA NIM microservices and the integration of NVIDIA AI Enterprise into Cohesity Gaia. Additional details about the collaborations with IBM and NVIDIA are available on Cohesity’s website.
Cohesity Completes Series F Funding with IBM and NVIDIA as Investors
Analyst Take: Though initially gaining traction on the back of its hyperconverged solutions for data backup and recovery, Cohesity continues expanding to address a broad range of cyber-resiliency requirements. Its strategy for executing on this vision includes complementing its own developments in areas such as data protection and AI with a vibrant roster of strategic alliances, as reflected by its Series F financing round.
The Series F news and investment by IBM comes approximately one year after the introduction of IBM Storage Defender. Storage Defender integrates Cohesity technology including DataProtect with IBM offerings including IBM Storage Protect, Storage Protect for Cloud, and Storage Virtualize. The solution marries the ability to create on- and off-array data copies to address a range of data retention and recovery requirements, and it supports the hybrid cloud environments in use by most companies. To further round out its cyber-resiliency capabilities, it also offers AI and event monitoring.
NVIDIA’s investment closely follows Cohesity’s March 2024 announcement of the integration of NVIDIA’s AI Enterprise software and its NIM microservices into Cohesity Gaia. Gaia is Cohesity’s AI-powered conversational interface that allows users to gain contextual and valuable large language model (LLM)-based insights from their secondary data stores. Specifically, the collaboration will allow users to access AI tools that can boost the efficiency and efficacy of tasks such as data analysis and risk assessment directly through the Cohesity interface. It will also allow users to create LLMs that are tailored to their organization’s specific needs and that utilize their own data—for richer context and more useful outputs.
This funding round is significant for several reasons, including lending additional backing from two industry heavyweights—one long tenured in enterprise data environments (IBM) and the other a darling of the industry due to the fundamental role it plays in enterprise AI stacks (NVIDIA). It will further Cohesity’s ability to address cyber-resiliency requirements, which are a board-level priority, providing even more opportunities for modern AI applications. As a part of this discussion, it is relevant to note that the collaboration will open Cohesity’s technology and the data it protects and manages to NVIDIA’s developer and partner ecosystems.
The IBM and NVIDIA investments follow just months after Cohesity’s February 2024 announcement of its plans to acquire the Veritas NetBackup and Alta data protection businesses. In addition to rounding out Cohesity’s workload support and expanding upon Cohesity’s Cloud Services capabilities, the acquisition provides Cohesity access to Veritas’ longstanding traction and strong reputation in enterprise workloads, including its sales presence and global support network.
In recent years, the IBM storage team has had limited outside investments in data infrastructure technology. There has also been considerable pressure on the Storage Protect market share, which is often seen as an older (but very sticky) technology. The Cohesity investment is substantial, given IBM’s install base, the development and release of technology to address cybersecurity challenges across the portfolio, and very importantly, IBM’s reach across the globe. IBM’s channel partners have been looking for an alternative solution to address data protection and security. This investment gives additional credence to IBM’s commitment to Storage Defender and intention to own and grow the company’s position in this market space.
Cohesity’s Series F funding round, with participation from industry leaders IBM and NVIDIA, is a material step forward in the company’s mission to deliver comprehensive cyber-resilience and AI solutions. By combining its own innovations with the strengths of its strategic partners, Cohesity is well-positioned to address the evolving data security and protection needs of modern enterprises. This approach not only empowers businesses to tackle critical data protection challenges but also unlocks exciting new possibilities for AI applications. This momentum will be further augmented by the anticipated addition of the Veritas data protection business, market traction, and sales arm.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
IBM Augments its Cyber Resiliency Stack with IBM Storage Defender, in Collaboration with Cohesity
Cohesity Gaia Uses RAG to Unlock Valuable Secondary Data
Cohesity Acquires Veritas Data Protection Assets
Author Information
Krista Case brings over 15 years of experience providing research and advisory services and creating thought leadership content. Her vantage point spans technology and vendor portfolio developments; customer buying behavior trends; and vendor ecosystems, go-to-market positioning, and business models. Her work has appeared in major publications including eWeek, TechTarget and The Register.
Now retired, Camberley brought over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
