Topio Taps $8M

Topio, a startup in the continuous data protection (CDP) segment, picked up $8 million in funding today, with which execs hope to secure a place in an increasingly competitive market (see Topio Gets $8M).

Topio claims more than 40 customers for its Data Protection Suite software, which combines asynchronous replication and time stamping for point-in-time recovery (see Topio Upgrades DPS }. With competitors jumping fast into the CDP and replication areas, Topio must hone its strategy.

CEO Yoram Novick says Topio's short-term goal will be to carve a further place for itself, particularly in midrange replication. CDP is a new market, still evolving, but replication has been there for some time,” Novick says. “We see the competition is not as great in the midrange, where companies want high-end features without being locked in to one vendor.”

Novick says he'll use Topio's new funding to beef up sales, marketing, and product development, in the process modestly increasing the company's employee roster of 50.

Topio's most important mission, though, may be adding partners to help bring it into more enterprise accounts. Topio announced last month that its software will work with Cisco Systems Inc.’s (Nasdaq: CSCO) intelligent switch (see Topio Supports SANTap and Cisco Seeks Intelligence). Novick is also looking for OEM deals with major system companies, as well as with more business continuity service providers similar to its current deal with IBM Global Services.Market-wise, Novick sees Topio fitting somewhere between traditional backup and virtual tape libraries (VTLs) on the low end and replication products from EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), and IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) at the high end.

Topio also has to fend off CDP startups such as Mendocino Software, Revivio Inc., and XOsoft, and replication vendors Constant Data Inc., FalconStor Software Inc. (Nasdaq: FALC), Kashya Inc., NSI Software Inc., and Sanrad Inc.

(See CDP: Calling It Right and Replication's All the Rage.)

Star Ventures led the round, with participation from previous Topio investors Sequoia Capitaland Sigma Partners. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based startup has raised $21 million over three rounds (see Topio Tops Off).

Novick says it's too early to say if the round will take Topio to profitability: “All I can say is we have plans to grow to be a large independent company."

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch0