Rubrik plans Europe expansion as it emerges from stealth mode

Data-management vendor boasts of 'tremendous' interest from partners as it emerges from stealth mode

Data-management start-up Rubrik plans to expand further into Europe and the Middle East to combat "really bad" solutions from competitors, with the help of its new distributors BigTec and Commtech.

Rubrik was founded just over two years ago and signed with BigTec - the datacentre division of Exclusive Networks - and Commtech in December, according to Bill Cordero, its head of worldwide channel sales.

He claims the vendor's model is 100 per cent channel, and all its partners are serviced through distribution. BigTec serves the whole of Europe, while Commtech focuses on the UK and Ireland.

Rubrik currently has offices in North America, the UK, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. It has plans to expand into the DACH region and the Middle East with an office in Dubai.

Rubrik CEO and co-founder Bipul Sinha said: "We are expanding because the market demand is so fierce for us that every day we are not in a market we are missing out.

"If you look at backup and recovery technology, it is a $20bn (£13.8bn) market with a lot of old players like Commvault, Veeam and EMC," he explained. "But the solutions are really bad. We looked at cloud and on-premise and thought, can we bring a gun to a knife fight? Can we change the game?

"We did, and we call it converged data management. If you look at traditional backup recovery architecture, you have to buy all the software separately. You just buy one Rubrik which connects to the public cloud. You buy one box [and] you can protect 500 machines."

Cordero claims that the channel is embracing the technology, with more than 100 partners signed up globally, around 30 of which are in Europe.

"There is certainly a tremendous amount of interest in partnering with us. We are beginning to select who are the right partners for us," he said.

Cordero claims Rubrik's perfect partners are those "very much aligned in early adoption, recognising technology very quickly." He added that partners can retain between 18 and 20 per cent margins on transactions.

"As a company we are experiencing $200,000 average deal sizes, so the margin of that deal would be $40,000," Sinha explained.

"Everybody is already doing backup; we are just offering them a better, easier way to do backup."

BigTec's managing director Jason Dance said that the distributor chose to add Rubrik to its portfolio because the vendor fits in with its existing products.

"We didn't have a backup solution which converged the management and the physical. That's why we are very excited about our partnership with Rubrik," he said.

"Obviously, what we don't want to do is over-distribute. So we will only be looking to work with around 12 to 15 partners in the UK."