VAST Data Triples Valuation in 1 Year to $3.7 Billion

NEW YORK, May 4, 2021 — VAST Data, a storage software company breaking decades-old tradeoffs, today announced $83 million in Series D funding, led by Tiger Global Management, at a post-money valuation of $3.7 billion – a tripling of the company’s valuation since April 2020. The round features strong participation from NVIDIA and several other existing investors, and is driven by VAST’s unique combination of rapid customer adoption and positive cash flow. The funds add to VAST’s Series B and Series C investments to create a balance sheet that is $230M strong, positioning VAST as the next great independent infrastructure company that is poised to disrupt and transform cloud and AI data centers globally.

The valuation comes as VAST recently reported record-breaking results and rapid customer growth throughout its first two years of operation. VAST ended its second year at nearly $100M of annualized software run rate, having quadrupled its software business year over year, while also achieving cash flow positivity. These results will be catalyzed in 2021 and beyond by VAST’s new software consumption model called Gemini, which disaggregates the business of hardware and software and provides customers with additional commercial advantages to further the adoption of Universal Storage.

Key success metrics that influenced the Series D include:

• Over 300% Customer Revenue Expansion: VAST customers make significant initial investments at an average of $1M, and have subsequently scaled these investments significantly in a very short time. On average, VAST has expanded its net revenue within existing customers by 328%. VAST now has several private and public sector customers who have invested over $10M in Universal Storage. 
• Hypergrowth with Cash Flow Positivity: Just as VAST has broken key architectural tradeoffs to transform customers’ relationship with data, the VAST Data business model has uniquely combined breakthrough levels of revenue growth with unparalleled cash efficiency. When combining an average selling price of $1M and VAST’s net revenue expansion with customers, the VAST go-to-market model results in higher revenue with fewer resources. This enables the company to focus on growth and serving its customers indefinitely without concern for additional capital raises.
• A Foundation for the Next Generation of AI Computing: Fast access to vast reserves of data is the cornerstone of the modern computing agenda. VAST Data has established a vision for its software that extends well beyond the classical boundaries of data storage and will redefine how organizations compute, infer and train AI models. Beyond the era of digital transformation, VAST’s innovative platform will usher in the era of natural data analysis. 

“VAST Data’s innovation engine has resulted in a breakout business story that speaks for itself,” said John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global Management. “We’re excited to partner with VAST as they transform the value that organizations extract from their data, and we see incredible potential as enterprises embrace data-driven AI computing across every facet of their business.”

About VAST Data

Headquartered in New York City, VAST Data’s managed storage software unlocks the value of data and modernizes data centers in preparation for the era of AI computing. VAST delivers real-time performance to all data and overcomes the historic cost barriers to building all-flash data centers. Since its launch in February 2019, VAST has become the fastest-selling infrastructure startup in history, according to the company.

About Tiger Global Management 

Tiger Global Management is a leading global technology investment firm with over $60 billion under management. The firm focuses on private and public companies in the internet, software, and financial technology sectors. Since 2001, Tiger Global has invested in hundreds of companies across more than 30 countries, including investments ranging from Series A to pre-IPO. The firm aims to partner with dynamic entrepreneurs operating market-leading companies in its core focus areas. Tiger Global’s investments have included JD.com, UiPath, Stripe, Databricks, Bytedance, Snowflake, Facebook, Alibaba, Procore, Chime, Blend, Peloton, Attentive, LinkedIn, Flipkart, and Toast.

Source: VAST Data