Cubbit, the scaleup that has developed an innovative geo-distributed cloud storage solution, announces that it has closed a new funding round of USD 12.5 million, corresponding to EUR 11.6 million.
The new capital raising will enable the company to push the deployment of its technology to European service providers and enterprises, allowing them to regain full sovereignty and control over their data, IT infrastructure and related costs. The capital raised will therefore support Cubbit’s growth in Europe starting with the DACH area, the French-speaking countries and the UK, and will help to further accelerate the adoption of Cubbit’s technology, which is already expanding rapidly in Europe with more than 350 business customers and supported by multiple international partnerships, including HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise), Equinix, Exclusive Networks and Leonardo.
Part of the funds will also be used to consolidate and enhance the ecosystem of software applications compatible with Cubbit’s enabling technology, supporting projects in several strategic sectors including aerospace, defence, cybersecurity, healthcare and public administration.
The new round is led by LocalGlobe, a fund that with its 19 unicorns in the portfolio has established itself as one of the leading funds in the EMEA region among the more than 10,000 investors evaluated according to the Dealroom 2023 report, and ETF Partners, a VC fund that is among the most active in sustainability investments in Europe. New investors also include Verve Ventures, 2100 Ventures, Hydra (Datalogic group holding), Growth Engine, Eurenergia e Moonstone. In addition, Azimut Libera Impresa SGR – Azimut Digitech Fund (supported by FNDX), CDP Venture Capital SGR (through its Fondo Evoluzione) and Primo Venturesreinvest in the company. Also joining as individual investors are a number of key industry executives, including Fabio Fregi, former country manager Italy at Google Cloud, Joe Zadeh, former VP product at Airbnb, and Duccio Vitali, founder of Alkemy.
The company was supported in its fundraising activities by advisor Growth Capital following Cubbit’s participation in the A-Road acceleration and fundraising programme, launched by Growth Capital in 2021, which assisted the company in its growth path through mentorship activities and ad hoc professional services. Cubbit was selected for the third batch and was mentored by Duccio Vitali, who has now also become an investor.
The company was supported in its fundraising activities by advisor Growth Capital. It is estimated that more than 180 billion terabytes of data will be produced by 2025 and 75 per cent of this will be created and processed at the edge, the company reports in a note citing sources from Statista and Gartner. This explosive growth increases the complexities of data orchestration, exposing organisations to greater risks of cyber attacks such as ransomware, compromising data sovereignty and increasing management costs.
Artificial intelligence and media production further amplify this uncontrolled growth, raising growing concerns in relation to geopolitical scenarios and the protection of sensitive information.
Cubbit overcomes these challenges by enabling organisations to create their own geo-distributed S3 cloud storage in minutes, suitable for any IT infrastructure and business policy needs, from hybrid cloud to edge. Cubbit’s DS3 Composer solution is a software platform that enables the orchestration of IT resources, based on data fragmentation and geo-distribution technology developed by Cubbit. The result is a sovereign, hyper-resilient, flexible and highly cost-efficient cloud storage service capable of protecting the data of European organisations.
Cubbit also ensures compliance with the required data resilience SLAs (Service Level Agreements) by using 25-50% less storage space than traditional solutions, thus minimising the environmental impact of the cloud.
“LocalGlobe and ETF Partners are top European VCs, and the one in Cubbit represents their first investment in Italy. This is a great, further confirmation of the scalability potential of Cubbit’s geo-distributed technology. Over the past few years we have grown significantly and made key deals with global players such as Leonardo, HPE and Equinix: now it is time to take it to the next level,’ says Stefano Onofri, co-CEO and co-founder of Cubbit, in a note.
“All companies in the world are, or will soon be, faced with the challenge of managing huge amounts of data. These companies do not need an additional cloud provider, but a cloud enabler to save them with a solution that fits their IT policies and strategies. Organisations will need to maintain full control over data, simplify workflows and reduce costs. Cubbit’s role is to help them achieve what was not possible before,’ adds Alessandro Cillario, co-CEO and co-founder of Cubbit.
Patrick Sheehan, managing partner and founder of ETF Partners, says: ‘The technology revolution is proving to be a double-edged sword: cloud storage fosters unprecedented innovation, but has a high environmental cost. Data centres consume more and more energy, causing their carbon footprint to soar. Cubbit’s Composer technology addresses this pressing issue, offering an innovation that reduces cloud storage emissions without impeding progress. This is not just an incremental improvement, but a leap towards a sustainable digital infrastructure. We are deeply impressed by the Cubbit team’s vision and achievements to date and are ready to support them in continuing to generate significant impact.
Ferdinando Sigona, partner at LocalGlobe, adds: ‘Data creation already represents one of the steepest exponential curves of our time and the advent of generative AI is set to further accelerate its growth. As a result, companies of all types and sizes are faced with increased complexity and costs. At the same time, the current geopolitical context pushes towards investments in AI sovereignty and we foresee that this need for control will extend to the entire technology stack, down to data storage. Cubbit’s cloud storage software effectively meets all these needs. We are excited to support Stefano, Alessandro and the entire team in meeting the strong market demand. (Cubbit co-founders pictured with the two lead investors of the round)
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