Bologna, 16 July 2024 - Cubbit, the first geo-distributed cloud storage enabler, announces the closing of a new $12.5 million funding round. The new capital will enable the company to push the spread of its technology to European service providers and enterprises, allowing them to regain full sovereignty and control over their data, IT infrastructure and related costs.

The capital raised will thus support Cubbitʼs growth in Europe starting with the DACH area, French-speaking countries and Great Britain, and will help further accelerate the adoption of Cubbitʼs technology, which is already expanding rapidly in Europe with more than 350 business customers and supported by multiple international partnerships, including HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise), Equinix, Exclusive Networks and Leonardo. Part of the funds will also be used to solidify and boost the ecosystem of software applications compatible with Cubbit's enabling technology, supporting projects in several strategic sectors including aerospace, defence, cybersecurity, healthcare and public administration.

The new round was led by LocalGlobe, a fund that with 19 unicorns in its portfolio was named Number 1 in EMEA among more than 10,000 investors evaluated according to the 2023 Dealroom report, and by ETF Partners, a VC fund among the leaders in sustainability investing in Europe. New investors also include Verve Ventures, 2100 Ventures, Hydra (holding company of the Datalogic group), Growth Engine, Eurenergia and Moonstone.

Furthermore, Azimut Libera Impresa SGR - Azimut Digitech Fund (supported by FNDX), CDP Venture Capital SGR (through its Fondo Evoluzione) and Primo Ventures also reinvest in the company. Also joining as individual investors were a number of key industry executives, including Fabio Fregi, former Country Manager Italy at Google Cloud, Joe Zadeh, former VP Product at Airbnb, and Duccio Vitali, founder of Alkemy. The company was supported in its fundraising by the advisor Growth Capital.

It is estimated that by 2025 more than 180 billion terabytes of data will be produced and 75% of this will be created and processed at the edge. This explosive growth increases the complexities of data orchestration, exposing organisations to greater risks of cyber-attacks (such as ransomware), compromising data sovereignty and increasing management costs. Artificial Intelligence and media production further amplify this uncontrolled growth, raising growing concerns with respect to geopolitical scenarios and the protection of sensitive information.

Cubbit overcomes these challenges by enabling organisations to create their own geo-distributed S3 cloud storage in minutes, suitable for any IT infrastructure and company policy needs, from hybrid cloud to edge. Cubbitʼs DS3 Composer solution is a software platform that enables the orchestration of IT resources based on data fragmentation and geo-distribution technology developed by Cubbit. The result is a sovereign, hyper-resilient, flexible and highly efficient cloud storage service capable of protecting the data of European organisations. The company sums up this process with the tagline "Your Cloud. Your Rules. Anywhere".

Cubbit also ensures compliance with the required data resilience SLAs (Service Level Agreements) by using 25-50% less storage space than traditional solutions, thus minimising the environmental impact of the cloud.

“LocalGlobe and ETF Partners are top European VCs, and their investment in Cubbit is their first in Italy. This is yet another confirmation of the scalability potential of Cubbitʼs geo-distributed technology. Over the past few years we’ve grown significantly and made key deals with global players such as Leonardo, HPE and Equinix. Now it’s time to take it to the next level", remarked Stefano Onofri, co-CEO and co-founder of Cubbit.

"All companies in the world are currently or will soon be dealing with the challenge of managing huge amounts of data. These companies don’t need an additional cloud provider, but rather a cloud enabler that allows them to save data with a solution that fits their IT policies and strategies. Organisations will need to maintain full control over data, simplify workflows and reduce costs. Cubbit's mission is to help them achieve what was not possible before”, added Alessandro Cillario, co-CEO and co-founder of Cubbit.

Patrick Sheehan, Managing Partner and Founder of ETF Partners, noted that: “The technology revolution is proving to be a double-edged sword: cloud storage fosters unprecedented innovation, but has a high environmental cost. Data centres are consuming more and more energy, causing their carbon footprint to soar. Cubbit's Composer technology addresses this pressing issue by offering an innovation that reduces cloud storage emissions without impeding progress. This isn’t just an incremental improvement, but rather a leap towards a sustainable digital infrastructure. We are very impressed by the Cubbit team's vision and achievements to date, and are ready to support them in continuing to generate significant impacts”.

Ferdinando Sigona, Partner at LocalGlobe, concluded by noting that: “Data creation already represents one of the steepest exponential curves of our time, and the advent of generative AI is set to further accelerate its growth. As a result, companies of all types and sizes are faced with increased complexity and costs. At the same time, the current geopolitical context is pushing towards investments in AI sovereignty, and we foresee that this need for control will extend to the entire technology stack, right down to data storage. Cubbit's cloud storage software responds effectively to all these needs. We’re excited to support Stefano, Alessandro and the entire team in meeting the strong market demand”.