Public cloud provider Wasabi has secured $27.5m in debt finance taking total funds raised to around $140m. The startup will spend the money on infrastructure, including additional data centres in new geographies.
Wasabi offers S3-compatible public cloud object storage in a single tier that’s 20 per cent of AWS S3’s cost and with faster data access. The company claims lightning speed but provides no numbers. There are no egress or API charges, which should help any cost comparisons with AWS no end.
David Friend, CEO and co-founder, said the cash infusion “marks Wasabi’s first major institutional debt round, which is an important milestone for our company and mission as we continue to roll out more data centres … This financing provides our company with stable, long-term support to drive our rapid growth.”
The new cash follows follows an April 2020 $30m equity round. Wasabi says revenue grew more than 3x from 2019 to 2020 and storage under management has expanded 150 per cent. Revenues grew 5x from 2018 to 2019.
Customer growth is notable:
- Sep 2018 – 3,000+
- Feb 2020 – 10,000
- May 2020 – near 15,000
- Jan 2021 – 21,000+
The acquisition rate since May 2020 is around the 700+/month mark. These are being recruited through more than 4,000 channel partners.
These growth stats have no doubt helped with the funding raise. It’s interesting that Wasabi can provide S3-class storage at a substantially lower cost than Amazon. We trust that this reflects a real lower cost base and not just marketing-led price levels to build custom.
