General Trends in the Cloud Storage Transfer Space

1. Technology partnerships in multi-cloud data transfer

• In January 2020, QNAP selected CloudFuze as its official partner in multi-cloud data transfer. CloudFuze allows one to "transfer from cloud to cloud between more than 40 cloud services."
• According to Meiji Chang, QNAP's General Manager, "An increasing number of organizations’ backup and recovery strategy operates on both physical and cloud platforms. We welcome the partnership with CloudFuze to help customers looking for streamlined workflow solutions to transfer or back up data from one cloud storage to another with CloudFuze’s optimized and agile cloud-to-cloud migration and sync solution."
• According to Ravi Poli, CloudFuze's CEO, "We are really excited to be associated with a market leader such as QNAP and have the opportunity to provide their customers with industry-leading file transfer services. Adding CloudFuze’s high-value services to QNAP’s already strong backup and sync solutions is a win-win for all parties, particularly QNAP’s customer base."
• Another technology partnership would that of Lyftron (another cloud data company) and Tableau, an analytics platform company. This partnership was announced in November 2019.

2. Cloud-to-cloud transfer solutions are being made free at a limited time

• Earlier this year, the full version of MultCloud by Aomei has been made free for three months. MultCloud allows one to "copy, move or migrate files from one cloud directly to another with Copy and Paste or Drag and Drop, instead of downloading and re-uploading files between different cloud accounts."
• CloudFuze has also been offering a free trial for personal and business use.

3. Demand for cloud storage transfer has increased due to the pandemic

• The existing global COVID-19 outbreak has massively restricted businesses that operate in on-premise IT systems. This has resulted in a higher demand for cloud storage transfer services.
• In July 2020, "Goldman Sachs poured $80 million in enterprise software startup LeanIX, which helps brands become cloud-native."

4. Debut of universal data access platform

• In June 2019, Lyftron launched its universal data access platform in the US. This platform has a "cloud data warehouse that acts as a data bridge between leading cloud platforms, on-premise data warehouses, and data sources."
• Lyftron's "advanced technology layer unifies structured and semi-structured data from more than 100 sources including modern data warehouses like Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, Yellowbrick, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Apache Spark as well as business intelligence tools such as Looker, Tableau and Power BI, and enables real-time analysis and faster insights."

5. High number of connected cloud services

• CloudFuze allows one to transfer data from cloud to cloud in over 40 different cloud services.
•  Cloudevo, on the other hand, supports over 20 clouds.

Recent Venture Capital Activities in Data Cloud Storage

1. Odaseva raised $25 million in its Series B funding round

• In October 2020, Odaseva raised $25 million in a Series B funding round which was led by Eight Roads Ventures. Other investors include F-Prime Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Serena, and Partech.
• Odaseva is a "leading Enterprise Cloud Trust Platform for organizations with business-critical cloud deployments."

2. Snowflake raised new funding worth $12.4 billion

• In February 2020, Snowflake, a California-based cloud company, has set to raise new funding which was valued at $12.4 billion. The funding round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group. Salesforce also participated.

3. Nasuni raised $40 million to transfer critical data

• In July 2020, Nasuni raised $40 million for its data protection and data transfer to the public cloud.
• Nasuni is a company that "sells a software-only solution that integrates with the preexistent cloud provider (such AWS or Microsoft Azure), so enterprise companies can take their unstructured data — currently located in data centers — and move it to the cloud." It was "co-founded by venture capitalist and managing director of Sigma Prime Ventures Paul Flanagan in 2009."
• According to Flanagan, "Closing major funding during these times of economic uncertainty is a testament to the promise that our investors see in Nasuni. When national and local governments issued lockdowns and stay-at-home orders to combat the virus, organizations were faced with a unique challenge: to deliver access to files and manage data center infrastructure remotely. With this new financing, we have all the resources we need to meet the growing demand."

4. Onica was acquired by Rackspace Technology Company

• In November 2019, Sunstone Partners sold its portfolio company, Onica, to Rackspace Technology. Onica is one of the nine best-managed cloud migration services providers as listed by Solutions Review.
• According to Stephen Garden, Onica's founder and CEO, "Sunstone Partner's investment and support were instrumental to our growth and success. It has been an incredible journey with Sunstone Partners, and I am looking forward to partnering with Rackspace for the next stage of growth."

5. Capgemini invested in Toucan Toco

• In February 2020, Capgemini made its first minority investment in a data storytelling solution that is Toucan Toco. This was done through Capgemini's joint investment fund with ISAI.
• According to Lucia Sinapi-Thomas, Capgemini Ventures' Managing Director, "Attracting a promising startup like Toucan Toco, shortly after the launch of the fund, confirms that the joining of forces between a professional VC and a strong business partner is a good value proposition."
• According to Etienne Piollet, Vice President at Capgemini Invent, "We are pleased to invest in Toucan Toco as we know their value proposition will enable Capgemini Invent to create deeper collaborations with our clients, by unlocking the real value of data and accelerate major transformational projects. Toucan Toco’s solution perfectly complements Capgemini’s approach and core competencies in driving innovation for clients."