WekaIO, the fast parallel file system storage startup, has laid off some of its sales team. We don’t have exact numbers but contacts in two tech storage vendors that declined to be named told us that recently-departed WekaIO execs had applied for sales positions at their companies.
WekaIO CEO Liran Zvibel said: “This is a B.S. spin from our competitors.”
“We did have a re-alignment of our sales force as part of our 2020 fiscal year to be highly channel focused in three key vertical markets – machine learning, life sciences and finance.”
He explained: “We have right-sized a small number of teams that could not find a good market fit in their region, keeping teams throughout the USA and Europe. That said, we are proactively hiring new salespeople and we are expanding our teams in the regions that had great success.”
“In your backyard, we have recently hired a Support organisation to handle Europe, augmenting the competent London Sales office we already had.”
Background
WekaIO is a high-flying and fast-growing startup has won numerous benchmarks for its super-fast storage software (here, here and here, for example).
WekaIO was founded in Israel in 2013 and has taken in $66.7m in funding, including a $31.7m C-round last year. Trade investors include HPE, Nvidia, Seagate, Western Digital Capital, Mellanox and Qualcomm.
The recent funding suggests that cash burn is unlikely to be an immediate problem. Zvibel confirmed this: “For the record, we are also very well funded into 2021.”
WekaIO sells 100 per cent through its channel and its own sales reps support the channel. OEMs include Dell EMC, HPE, Penguin Computing and Supermicro. There are more than 65 global resellers, mostly based in the USA. The company launched its WekaIO Innovation Network global partner program in November last year to strengthen channel sales.
