Wasabi Technologies grows horn with $250 million in fresh funds

Hot cloud storage firm Wasabi Technlogies achieved unicorn status with $250 million in new funding, including $125 million raised in Series D campaign led by L2 Point Management with participation from Cedar Pine; an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management.

Also, returning investors including Fidelity Management & Research Company and Forestay Capital, helped bring Wasabi’s valuation to over $1.1 billion. 

Wasabi also expanded its existing debt facility with MGG Investment Group to $125 million. Barclays acted as sole placement agent on the transaction.

In the cloud, hot storage is a universal, one-size-fits-all cloud object storage environment that is significantly faster than traditional frequent-access storage services. Unlike cold or archive storage, hot storage satisfies nearly all storage performance requirements.

Wasabi is used to store data across a wide range of industries, including professional sports, energy and natural resources, finance, surveillance, education, manufacturing, consumer technology, healthcare, scientific research, and media and entertainment. 

The new equity will drive expansion into additional vertical markets and geographies, enhance Wasabi’s channel partnerships, and scale the company’s go-to-market team and global brand strategies. 

Meanwhile, the debt will be used to finance capital equipment and infrastructure in Wasabi’s storage regions around the world, and to invest in Wasabi’s technology capabilities to lay the groundwork for a new generation of cloud storage architecture.

“Closing a large up round in this environment speaks to the spectacular growth of Wasabi, the magnitude of the cloud storage opportunity, and our leadership as the industry’s largest pure-play cloud storage vendor,” said David Friend, co-founder and CEO of Wasabi Technologies.

“We do it [cloud storage] better than anyone else in the industry.  Because of this singular focus, our team has achieved best in class performance and security at the lowest prices in the industry,” said Friend.

Kerstin Dittmar, Managing Partner of lead investor L2 Point, will join Wasabi’s Board of Directors. 

“Wasabi provides a game-changing product that offers customers a simpler, faster, and significantly more economical solution to their cloud data storage needs,” said Dittmar. “We believe this capital raise will allow Wasabi to continue to expand its offering across additional services and geographies to meet their global customers’ needs.”

In addition to hot cloud storage, Wasabi partners with over 350 technology companies, including most of the world’s leading backup, disaster recovery, and surveillance companies.