Startup Odaseva Raises $54M to Bolster Global Expansion, R&D

A data security startup founded by a Salesforce architect has raised $54 million to boost its R&D capabilities, expand its product line and strengthen its market presence.

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The Series C funding will allow San Francisco-based Odaseva to provide more robust support to clients dealing with stringent data residency regulations and evolving privacy laws around the globe, according to founder and CEO Sovan Bin. He said the Silver Lake Waterman-led funding round will help Odaseva address increasing demand for compliance, failover management and zero trust security technology.

“Silver Lake will help us really expand in the U.S., which is a strategic market for us,” Bin said. “That’s the first thing that appealed to us: their network, their experience and skill with companies in the United States.”

Odaseva, founded in 2012, employs 154 people. It most recently completed a $25 million Series B funding round in October 2020 led by Eight Roads Ventures. The company has been led since inception by Bin, who previously spent six years leading Salesforce’s architect team in Paris. He said the company gets 65% of its revenue from the U.S. and expects to achieve operational breakeven by early 2025.

The Value of a Virtual Storage Layer

Reaching breakeven will enhance Odaseva’s credibility with large enterprises and government clients, which make up the bulk of its customers. Bin said Odaseva’s virtual storage layer for data residency and end-to-end encryption capabilities set the company apart from other data security startups and allow Odaseva to more effectively address customer needs around securing critical data and infrastructure (see: Why Tenable Is Eyeing Israeli Data Security Startup Eureka).

“What you can do instead is have everyone in the same environment,” Bin said. “However, the Chinese employees will access the Chinese data looks like it is the same environment, but it’s really just being stored in China. So it’s a virtual storage layer that you’re going to integrate with the status quo environment.”

Odaseva plans to use the Series C funding to address rising demand around data residency, sovereignty and failover management with investments into compliance, confidentiality, integrity and availability. Investments in compliance and data residency management solutions will allow Odaseva to comply with enhanced regulatory demands from the European Union’s GDPR and the Chinese Cybersecurity Act.

“Regulations evolved really fast,” Bin said. “GDPR in 2018 focused on privacy and led to the modernization of other security regulations.”

The company’s compliance and data sovereignty offerings provide flexibility in data residency and management, either through splitting environments or using virtual storage layers. Investments in failover management are driven by the need for better uptime and reliability, especially in cloud environment, and Bin said Odaseva’s bets will focus on improving recovery point and recovery time.

Mastering Data Management

Bin said Odaseva is partnering with major cloud providers to ensure data management agility and compliance with various regulations. Meanwhile, Odaseva’s new zero trust products will provide end-to-end encryption for cloud data, addressing the security posture and confidentiality needs of sectors such as financial services and the need for secure cloud data management.

“They need to secure their data from every aspect and protect and elevate the security posture from a data confidentiality perspective,” Bin said. “They need to encrypt it.”

Odaseva plans to strengthen data management by maintaining a flexible virtual storage layer, partnering with major cloud providers and ensuring agile compliance with evolving regulations, according to Bin. He said Odaseva’s holistic approach to security – integrating multiple aspects including backup, cyber defense, failover management and compliance into a single platform – sets it apart in the data security space.

“We have one platform to fit all of the security needs of the CISOs of the governments that select our technology,” Bin said.

Bin said Odaseva’s zero trust approach could fundamentally change how risk assessments and vendor relationships are managed, reducing the need to trust third parties with sensitive data. Securing an organization’s most strategic assets internally reduces its dependence on outside vendors while enhancing the company’s security posture, Bin said.

Key metrics for tracking the success of Odaseva’s Series C funding include net yield retention, gross margin and the deployment efficiency of its security solutions across customer entities. Bin said the company aims to maintain a high net retention rate and boost Odaseva’s already-strong gross margins.

“What zero trust brings to the table is a capacity to remove the need to trust the vendor with your most strategic asset,” Bin said, “because if the vendor doesn’t have your data, then the hacker will not be able to steal those numbers.”