Kiwi cloud company raises $1.2m, eyes up enterprise space

Revert, the New Zealand-based cloud backup specialist, has raised $1.2 million in its second round of funding, which will be used extend its backup solution and introduce new data monitoring and security features.

This investment brings Revert's total funding received to date to over $1.6 million.

The second round of funding was led by Punakaiki Fund, who were joined by leading technology sector investors, existing investors, and founder/CEO, Rich Chetwynd.

Revert currently backs up over 90 million files (over 80TB of data) and has brought 5,800 active users on board in four months.

Currently, Revert provides backup services for many of the major cloud providers – Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and MailChimp among others - while working on solutions for more business-focused apps like Salesforce and Box.

"Our latest round of investment enables us to extend our proven backup solution out to more SaaS applications and to introduce intelligent new data monitoring and security features," says Chetwynd.

"Moving to the cloud led many people to stop worrying about backup services. Unfortunately, being in the cloud doesn't mean your data is immune to data loss, theft, and security breaches.

"Having a backup of your cloud-based data is a great first step and we are expanding on that vision," he says.

However, Chetwynd says the real strength of Revert's offering lies in proactive management of data security.

"We can see when someone is accessing cloud-based data and identify the theft or sharing of confidential information among other things.

"Being able to see that kind of activity and respond before it becomes a problem is a new frontier for data security, and Revert will be at the forefront of that movement," he says.

Chetwynd says he expects this kind of capability to extend Revert's reach into the corporate and business markets and the new funding will help drive the company in this direction.

Lance Wiggs, Punakaiki Fund director/manager, says, "It's not the first time at the rodeo for Rich, Nicole or their investors and advisors, and they have identified a genuine unmet need in the market.

"The product is working well and with the addition of enterprise features we agree that the future looks extraordinarily strong."