Overview

OwnBackup is an early-stage company, offering a service to backup data stored on SaaS platforms. The company started as a services company for data restoration, but with the increased demand for cloud solutions, decided to take advantage of the technology they have developed and the team’s unique expertise around data management and protection to launch ownBackup. Company is now out to raise its first financing round to build the sales and marketing infrastructure and accelerate growth.

We find the ownBackup opportunity attractive for several reasons. The company has a proven technology targeting a nascent market that is expected to grow quickly in the coming years, driven by the massive trends around enterprise data (hyper-growth, big data, etc.) and the adoption of SaaS. The space is highly acquisitive, with acquirers ranging from traditional IT vendors to emerging SaaS platforms, and we also believe ownBackup is well positioned at this stage with nice early traction and recognition by Gartner.

Market Opportunity

The enterprise backup market, valued at $5 billion, is led by established companies like Symantec, IBM, and Dell. However, as more businesses move to SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), these vendors have been slow to offer backup solutions for SaaS platforms, creating an opportunity for new players.

The SaaS market is growing rapidly at an 18% annual rate and is expected to hit $50 billion by 2018. Despite this growth, SaaS providers offer only basic backup options, often leaving enterprises vulnerable. This opens the door for specialized backup solutions that can manage all enterprise data across multiple SaaS platforms from a single console. Such platforms would also offer better data protection, compliance, and control, addressing issues like vendor lock-in.

While the market for SaaS backup solutions could reach $500-750M by 2018, adoption may be slower, particularly among small and medium businesses (SMBs). However, there’s potential for higher growth if these platforms expand beyond just backup into broader data management.

OwnBackup pre-seed investment Offering

OwnBackup began as a data restoration service, building strong expertise and scalable technology to detect data corruption and restore data without affecting legitimate changes. The system has been tested with thousands of users and is designed to scale for large enterprises.

Initially targeting SMBs, OwnBackup focused on Gmail, social media, and Salesforce. However, strong traction with Salesforce customers led them to pivot toward enterprise platforms. They recently launched ServiceNow and plan to add Concur, Workday, and Netsuite soon. While the technology easily supports relational data apps, they are working on adapting it to file-based applications like Google Apps and Office 365, with an estimated timeline of three months.

Competitive landscape

There are three key groups in OwnBackup’s market:

  • Traditional Backup Companies (e.g., Symantec, EMC, IBM): Potential partners or acquirers, not competitors. Most focus on existing markets, with EMC as a rare exception through its Spanning acquisition.
  • Cloud Security/Access Vendors (e.g., CloudLock, Okta): Unlikely to enter SaaS backup soon due to different priorities and technology gaps.
  • Direct Competitors:
    • Backupify (Datto): Strong in Google Apps, limited Salesforce functionality, focused on SMBs with $500K MRR.
    • Spanning (EMC): Similar to Backupify, with limited focus from EMC.

OwnBackup stands out with full-org restoration and 24-hour backup cycles, leading innovation in the nascent SaaS backup space.

Go to market and traction

Since launching on Salesforce AppExchange, OwnBackup has seen promising organic traction, though without a marketing and sales strategy, growth has been inconsistent and hard to predict. This early interest suggests potential product-market fit, but key SaaS metrics like CAC remain unmeasured.

The company is now focusing on developing a go-to-market strategy, targeting enterprises with 1,000+ employees (deals over $20K/year) due to their larger SaaS deployments, IT policies, and compliance needs. The plan involves a “land and expand” strategy—starting with backup for one platform and upselling additional services. They aim to build a U.S. inside sales team to capitalize on inbound leads, but lead generation and sales effectiveness remain untested.

Team

Sam Gutmann (CEO) – joined the company about 6 months ago and is based in NY. Was founder and CEO of Intronis, which offers data protection solutions. The company has over 100 employees, and is supported by CRV and OpenView.

Ariel Berkman (CTO) – started in 2006 the data recovery service and led it successfully until recently. CS graduate from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an alumni of elite technology unit in the Israeli army.

Additional: Ori Yankelev, Eran Cohen, Daniel Gershuni.

Deal Terms

  • Pre-Seed Round Size: $500,000.
  • Oryzn Investment Amount: $500,000.
  • Format: SAFE, 20% discount.
  • Valuation Cap: $5,000,000.
  • Board: one board seat for Horizon Capital (formally known as Oryzn Capital).
  • Unallocated ESOP: 10% (as part of Seed round).

Scenario Analysis

Summary

  • Team: Strong, talented, and understands market trends well.
  • Market: Ownbackup’s TAM is big and growing fast, no concerns here.
  • Unique value proposition: offering a service to backup data stored on SaaS platforms.
  • Technology: detects data corruption and restores data without affecting legitimate changes.
  • Business model: Classic SaaS subscription fees.
  • Deal: standard terms.

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