DataCore is buying edge-focused hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) supplier StarWind Software.
Beverly, Massachusetts-based StarWind sells an HCI Appliance or Virtual HCI Appliance, running the same software on a customer’s choice of hardware. The software supports options for hypervisors like VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, or StarWind’s own KVM-based StarWind Virtual SAN, using SSDs and HDDs, with data access over iSCSI, NVMe-oF, or RDMA. The company has notched up more than 63,800 customers. It was founded in 2008 by CEO, CTO, and chief architect Anton Kolomyeytsev and COO Artem Berman. Kolomyeytsev was an ex-Windows kernel engineer.
They raised $2 million in a 2009 A-round and $3.25 million in a 2014 B-round from Almaz Capital, ABRT Venture Fund, the A-round investor, and AVentures Capital. It has been self-funding since and has flown under the radar to an extent as it focused more on software and support than marketing. StarWind was named Customer’s Choice in the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Report for Hyperconverged Infrastructure.
DataCore CEO Dave Zabrowski stated: “This acquisition represents a significant leap toward realizing our DataCore.NEXT vision. Merging our strengths with StarWind’s trusted edge and ROBO expertise allows us to deliver reliable HCI that works seamlessly from central data centers to the most remote locations. We are focused on giving organizations greater choice, control, and a more straightforward path for managing data wherever it resides.”
Kolomyeytsev said: “Joining the DataCore family allows us to bring our high-performance virtual SAN technology to a wider audience. With growing uncertainty around Broadcom-VMware’s vSAN licensing and pricing – particularly in distributed and cost-sensitive environments – organizations are rethinking their infrastructure strategies. Together with DataCore, we are delivering greater flexibility, performance, and freedom from hardware and hypervisor lock-in without compromising simplicity or control.”
Zabrowski and Kolomyeytsev’s pitch is that they can supply better software and a more affordable HCI system than either Broadcom’s vSphere/vSAN or so-called “legacy” HCI systems. They think the edge and remote office-branch office (ROBO) IT environment will be increasingly influenced by AI, and DataCore’s partner channel will relish having an AI-enabled edge HCI offering to add to their portfolio.
StarWind’s tech becomes a vehicle for DataCore to deliver its software-based services to edge and ROBO locations and complements its existing AI services-focused Perifery and the SANSymphony (block) and Swarm (object) core storage offerings, as well as its acquired Arcastream parallel file system tech.
Zabrowski is a serial acquirer at DataCore, having purchased Object Matrix, Caringo (for Swarm), and Kubernetes-focused MayaData.
The StarWind team will be mostly joining DataCore.
+Comment
The acquisition price was not revealed, but we think it’s a single-digit multiple of StarWind’s funding as the firm is highly regarded and successful, albeit by some standards a tad under-marketed.
