CPPIB Invests in Intelligent Data Management?

Private Capital Journal reports, CPPIB co-invests with Insight’s US $500 investment in Veeam:

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) has invested an undisclosed amount in Veeam® Software as co-investor to Insight Venture Partners which invested US $500 million in the company.

Insight Venture Partners’ Managing Director, Michael Triplett, will join Veeam’s board of directors.

Founded by CEO Andrei Baronov and EVP Ratmir Timashev, Baar, Switzerland based Veeam is the global leader in Intelligent Data Management. Veeam Availability Platform is a complete solution to help customers on the journey to automating data management and ensuring the Availability of data.

News Release

Major Investment to Accelerate Next Phase of Company’s Growth and Underscores Veeam’s No.1 Position in the Rapidly Expanding Data Management Market

BAAR, Switzerland: January 16, 2019: Veeam® Software, the leader in Backup solutions that enable Intelligent Data Management™, today announced that Insight Venture Partners has invested $500 million with strong participation from strategic investor Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) to accelerate the next phase of Veeam’s growth as the No.1 provider of Data Management solutions for the public and private cloud. Veeam will leverage Insight Venture Partners’ internal business strategy arm, Insight Onsite, and capital to accelerate its expansion through both organic growth and M&A activities.

Veeam is one of the largest privately held software companies in the world, with approximately $1 billion in sales and more than 325,000 customers, adding 50,000 new customers every year. Veeam has been growing organically over the last 12 years in a rapidly expanding cloud data management market that enterprises annually spend an estimated $30 billion[i] to address. Testament to this growth, Veeam touches more production environment workloads than any other systems management company in the market.

“We have a long-standing relationship with Jeff Horing and Michael Triplett from Insight Venture Partners, having worked with them since 2002 when Insight invested in our first company, Aelita Software,” said Ratmir Timashev, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President (EVP), Sales and Marketing, at Veeam. “Back then, we relied on Insight to provide strategic counsel and support, and after we sold that company to Quest Software in 2004, we continued our relationship. Over the years, Insight has been a trusted advisor to Bill Largent, Andrei Baronov and me, even acquiring a minority share in Veeam back in 2013. Today, Veeam is leading the data management space, with more than 325,000 customers, 60,000 partners, 82 percent of the Fortune 500 relying on our solutions, and with industry analysts heralding us as Leaders across all sectors; with Insight and CPPIB’s, investment I know we will take this to the next level.”

“Over the past decade, Veeam has established itself as the premier vendor for on-premises backup and recovery software, and is now No.1 in the market for providing data management for public and private cloud environments. Only great companies like Amazon and Apple have been able to pivot into market leading positions in multiple markets, and Veeam now joins this elite group,” commented Michael Triplett, Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners, and member of the Board of Directors at Veeam. “Veeam has unparalleled leadership in terms of technology, vision and go-to-market strategies, which we believe will only further extend its No.1 market position. Insight is thrilled to continue this journey with Veeam’s management.”

Insight Venture Partners’ investment validates the vision and direction laid out by Veeam’s executive leadership team – to be the most trusted provider of Backup solutions that enable Intelligent Data Management, and, through the Veeam Availability Platform, deliver Agility, Availability and Business Acceleration to customers across the globe. Leveraging Insight Venture Partners’ expertise, the investment will enable Veeam to accelerate its growth trajectory through both organic growth – i.e. portfolio innovation and expanding its geographical footprint – and via M&A activity which will drive Veeam’s expansion into adjacent markets.

Pursuant to the terms of this investment Insight Venture Partners’ Managing Director, Michael Triplett, will join Veeam’s Board of Directors.

Gordon R.Caplan, Co-Chairman of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP., served as advisor for the deal.

For more information, visit https://www.veeam.com.

About Veeam Software

Veeam is the global leader in Intelligent Data Management. Veeam Availability Platform is the most complete solution to help customers on the journey to automating data management and ensuring the Availability of data. With more than 325,000 customers worldwide, including 82 percent of the Fortune 500 and 66 percent of the Global 2000, Veeam’s customer satisfaction scores, at 3.5X the industry average, are the highest in the industry. The Veeam global ecosystem includes 60,000 channel partners, Cisco, HPE, Lenovo and NetApp as exclusive resellers, and more than 21,000 cloud and service providers. Headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, Veeam has offices in more than 30 countries. To learn more, visit https://www.veeam.com or follow Veeam on Twitter @veeam.

About Insight Venture Partners

Insight Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight currently has over $20 billion of assets under management and has cumulatively invested in more than 300 companies worldwide. Our mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success. Across our people and our portfolio, we encourage a culture around a core belief: growth equals opportunity. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter @insightpartners.

About Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is a professional investment management organization that invests the funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) to pay current benefits in the best interests of 20 million contributors and beneficiaries. In order to build a diversified portfolio, CPPIB invests in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income instruments. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, New York City, São Paulo and Sydney, CPPIB is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm’s length from governments. At September 30, 2018, the CPP Fund totalled C$368.3 billion. For more information about CPPIB, please visit www.cppib.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

The first thing that crossed my mind after reading this was why can't Veeam Software be a publicly-traded company so I can invest in its shares.

This is ultimately what's going to happen and when it does, CPPIB and Insight Venture Partners are going to make great returns and the founders of the company will cash in the most (deservedly so).

Just the fact that Veeam is now No.1 in the market for providing data management for public and private cloud environments tells me quite a bit, it's in a great growth area and it has indeed joined an elite group of companies as it has catapulted into a dominant position.

As far as CPPIB, it has invested in data centers in North America and Asia so why not data management? This is what Mark Machin means to be part of the age of disruption, invest in long-term trends that will bring about steady returns and be part of the innovation wave.

Anyway, this sounds like another great deal for CPPIB, one that will benefit the Fund and its beneficiaries over the long run.

Below, the opening video from the VeeamON 2018 keynote. Veeam is the leader in Intelligent Data Management for the Hyper-Available Enterprise.

And Doug Hazelman, Veeam VP of Product Strategy, introduces Veeam and discusses their product line and how it helps availability for networking professionals, discusses Modern Data Protection and presents an overview of the main features introduced in the new Veeam Availability Suite 9.5, including enterprise scalability enhancements, full integration with Microsoft 2016 Data Center Technologies, Cloud restore for any Veeam backup and much more.

Lastly, an interesting interview with Doug Hazelman and Ratmir Timashev at VMworld 2016.

Update: After sending my comment to Doug Hazelman via Twitter, he was kind enough to inform me he parted ways with Veeam in April 2017 on good terms: