Veeam is adding Copilot to three of its Microsoft services to provide faster threat detection and accelerated backup restoration. Meanwhile, Microsoft is making an equity investment in Veeam.
Private equity business Insight Partners has owned Veeam since 2020. In the five years since, Veeam has gained the largest revenue share of the data protection market, according to IDC. The company made a $2 billion secondary share offering in December last year, valuing Veeam at $15 billion. Now Microsoft has bought itself an equity position in Veeam, bringing Microsoft AI services to three offerings: Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365, Veeam Data Cloud Vault, and new Entra ID identity security and resilience services.
Veeam has been energetically partnering with Microsoft. It announced its Azure-based Veeam Data Cloud (VDC) covering Microsoft 365 and Azure in March last year. The Veeam Data Platform v12.3 release added backup for Entra ID last December. The Veeam Data Cloud Vault, announced in June last year, uses the Azure public cloud to provide immutable, virtually air-gapped, backup storage of Azure and Microsoft 365 data.
Veeam CEO Anand Eswaran stated: “By joining forces with Microsoft, we’re bringing AI-powered intelligence to 550,000 customers, and the majority of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, enabling them to protect, detect, and recover faster than ever before.”
Jason Graefe, Microsoft corporate VP for ISVs and Digital Natives, said: “AI is transforming every aspect of business. By integrating Microsoft AI with Veeam’s market-leading data resilience solutions, we’re helping customers not only protect their critical data but also unlock new insights and efficiencies across Microsoft 365 and Azure.”
A Digital Native or Digital Native Business, according to the corporate types, is an example of “companies that are born in the cloud, conduct all their business online, and have no physical location for sales or customer service.”
The pair say the incorporation of Microsoft’s AI services will “support customers in gaining faster insights, smarter threat detection, and more automated recovery.” More specifically, the integration with Microsoft AI will achieve:
- Detection of suspicious activity earlier
- Identification of backup vulnerabilities
- Automated compliance and recovery reporting
- Accelerated data restores
Veeam doesn’t seem to obviously need Microsoft cash to grow its business if one judges by the secondary share offering. But it does seem Veeam has a need to offer AI-enhanced services. Competitors Cohesity (Gaia), Rubrik (Annapurna and Copilot), and Commvault are pushing AI enhancements vigorously and Veeam risks being left behind.
With analysts placing Veeam in the top spot for data protection sales and wrapping itself inside a glamorous AI coat, the time for an IPO could be in the next few months.
