Sydney startup snapped up for AWS-Azure "bridge"

US vendor Unitrends has acquired six-person Sydney startup Yuruware, with the multinational now on the lookout for resellers in Asia Pacific.

The backup and DR vendor acquired the startup from Australian research body NICTA for an undisclosed sum.

The Australian reported the selling price as "eight figures", suggesting a value of at least $10 million.

Sydney outfit Yuruware sparked international interest for automating a method for businesses to bridge workloads across different cloud platforms, such as Amazon Web Systems, OpenStack and Windows Azure.

The technology is "revolutionary", claimed Yuruware's founder Anna Liu.

"The two platforms you bridge can be on different virtualisation technology. It's much more difficult, impossible to do, but we've cracked it," she told CRN.

Unitrends will make the Sydney firm's technology a key part of its backup and disaster recovery suite.

In addition, Unitrends plans to make a push into the Asia Pacific channel.

“I believe there are plans to definitely start the sales and marketing aspect," Liu told CRN. "Unitrends has a well-established MSP program in the North American market and is looking at replicating that for the Asia Pacific market.

"My understanding is that also includes the reseller or value-added reseller. Also, some of the professional services providers beyond just managed serviced providers."

This will include an "aggressive" growth phase with plans to double the team in Australia, said Liu, who has taken the title of managing director of Unitrends Australia following the buyout.

Unitrends has more than 300 customers to date in the Asia Pacific region, with 150 added in the last 12 months.  

The vendor plans to "aggressively add to the partner base in the APAC region," said senior vice president of worldwide sales for Unitrends, Eric Dougherty.

The company plans to treat its Sydney presence as a "hub and a jumping off point" for further expansion into the Asia Pacific region, he told CRN.

The vendor currently has two distributors in Australia, Connector Systems Australia and Bluechip Infotech. It will be relying "directly" on resellers to build its presence in APAC, Dougherty said.

"Larger resellers within the region also have reach beyond Australia and extend into other areas of APAC which will be important for Unitrends’ long-term growth," he said.

Dougherty said Unitrends will offer its entire portfolio of backup, archiving and disaster recovery and assurance products and services in the APAC region.

Unitrends has more than 10,000 customers worldwide and achieved 82 percent year-on-year growth in its first quarter, according to a recent announcement.

The vendor specialises in data protection for private and public cloud and also has rack-mounted recovery appliances.

The new Sydney office will lead research and development on the next generation of Unitrends' cloud backup product, Liu said.

The Australian startup is a standout for attracting a buyer without going through venture capital funding first, said NICTA's director broadband and the digital economy, Terry Percival.

"Most [NICTA startups] have gone through venture capital funding," he said. "It's fantastic to get a straight-out sale to a large US corporation."

Several other NICTA technology startups have also generated attention. Audinate uses off-the-shelf ethernet for distribution of professional-quality audio in concert venue and sporting arenas. It lists the likes of BOSE, Bosch, Sennheiser and Yamaha as licencees.

Open Kernel Labs is behind virtualisation software used in 1.6 billion devices including mobile phones, according to NICTA. It was acquired in 2012 by General Dynamics.

"These startups all have deep technology underneath them. They're based on five years of top-quality research," said Percival.