Yosemite Grows $10M More

Tape backup vendor Yosemite Technologies Inc. has backed up its trucks for $10 million in a B funding round.

The Fresno, Calif.-based company isn't a newbie. It's been around since 1996 and carved a niche with its TapeWare backup product for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which it sells exclusively through partners (see Yosemite Releases TapeWare 7).

Indeed, Yosemite CEO Kevin Reinis says the company is already profitable, thanks to OEM deals with Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), Certance LLC, and Gateway Inc. (see HP Bundles Yosemite Into Tape, Certance Backs Up SMBs, and Gateway Chews Storage Cud).

Yosemite, which now has 68 employees, will try to expand its international sales capabilities with the latest funding, which was led by Trinity Ventures

with participation of previous investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partnersand Altos Ventures.

Yosemites first round of funding pulled in $5 million in April of 2003.Like other private companies in the storage space these days, Yosemite's not shy about talking IPO -- at arm's length. Reinis says the company is looking to bump up revenues for a public offering "post 2005."

But that could be a tough task now that the SMB market has the attention of the major backup players. In its favor, Yosemite has an enviable place in that market, which seems to be a universal goal of storage vendors these days (see The Battle for Smallsville). “People are trying to get to where we already are,” Reinis boasts.

Still, when everybody else gets there, it could be at Yosemite’s expense. For instance, CommVault Systems Inc.

-- which will almost certainly beat Yosemite to an IPO -- recently announced an OEM deal with Dell and a reseller deal with HP for an SMB version of its backup software (see CommVault Locks In Dell and CommVault Deals With HP). That puts CommVault directly in competition with Yosemite.

Meanwhile, market biggies Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS), Legato Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: LGTO), and Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) (NYSE: CA) are also aiming their backup products at the SMB market after previously concentrating on the midrange and high end (see CA Touts Backup Reviews).

Reinis claims TapeWare is simpler to use than offerings from these relatively new competitors. He also plans to extend Yosemite’s product line with branded shipments of a disk-to-disk-to-tape (DDT) backup product that is embedded today in a backup appliance from a vendor he won’t name.Reinis himself joined Yosemite last November after working at Veritas, IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), and Dell, where he started its PowerVault division (see Yosemite Appoints CEO).

He says his goal at Yosemite is to double revenue this year, primarily by adding international distributors. Reinis says Yosemite currently picks up about one third of its revenue from Europe and 9 percent from Asia with the rest coming from North America. He will target those areas this year and look to increase Yosemite’s presence in Japan next year.

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch