Data protection outfit Veeam has reportedly laid off around 300 employees, according to one caught up in the redundancies.
In a post on LinkedIn, Denise Jongenelen, a senior campaign account manager, said she and “roughly 300 of my colleagues” were “eliminated” as part of an “organizational restructure”. She thanks the company for the “relationships, professional growth and experiences” during her five plus years on board.
B&F asked Veeam to comment on the number of redundancies, and chief operating officer Matthew Bishop sent us a statement:
“2023 was Veeam’s best ever year in terms of market share – now number 1 in the global market – growth and profitability. Like any successful company, during annual planning Veeam makes decisions to prioritize investment areas reflecting the evolution of the business and the market. We don’t publicly disclose confidential business plans but we can share we’re ramping up hiring in some areas, transitioning some roles to new teams, and retiring other roles. Our primary focus today is providing the best possible support to those Veeam employees impacted by the changes and assisting them to find their next career opportunity.”
The company laid off 200 employees in March last year. After that adjustment, Veeam’s total staff amounted to more than 5,000 employees.
Veeam, which has more than 450,000 customers, was bought by Insight Partners for $5 billion in 2020. It operates as on-premises application and system backup supplier, is moving into SaaS application protection via a deal with Cirrus for Microsoft 365 and Azure, and is investing in startup Alcion. Veeam also protects customers from ransomware and other cyber threats.
The business competes with traditional data protection players such as Commvault, Veritas, Rubrik, Cohesity, as well as Druva and HYCU that are active in the Backup-as-a-Service and SaaS application protection space.
Commvault is publicly owned whereas Cohesity, Druva, HYCU, Rubrik, and Veeam are not. There is a logjam building up as the backers of these companies look to get a return on the cash they invested. A Veeam IPO could deliver a good exit for Insight Partners and the company’s financial situation would need to look impressive, so trimming expenses is perhaps not surprising.
