Without the cloud infrastructure, companies would definitely struggle during the coronavirus pandemic that has made the whole world come to a standstill. With the cloud, it is possible for companies to edit documents securely, collaborate various pieces of work, and access analytics among others. It could be impossible to imagine a collaboration between coworkers without the same.
Understand this, companies have spent a record investment in cloud infrastructure services in the first quarter of 2020. In the meantime, Canalys has indicated that the investment in the cloud has witnessed 34.5% year-on-year growth. It is no secret that businesses are flocking to adapt to cloud-based services and remote collaborate and working tools.
To detail on the same, Netflix has doubled its anticipated sign ups from new customers in Q1 2020 due to the lockdown across the world. Also, the much-talked about video conferencing platform Zoom saw a drastic jump in its user base during the same period. Even Google Meet surpassed 100 million daily active users in a short time. Amazon’s AWS has surpassed a $10 billion milestone for the first time since its debut, which is a 33% year-on-year increase. Having said that, these companies need to store the data somewhere and this is why the investment in cloud infrastructure is of importance. And, here we list a few European cloud tech startups that will make sure the data on the cloud is safe and secure and readily accessible.
Oodrive (France)
Founder/s: Cédric Mermilliod, Stanislas de Rémur, Edouard Bruté de Rémur
Founded year: 2000
Funding: €68 million
Oodrive is one of the leading companies in Europe that specialises in managing sensitive data. This startup works towards the adoption of electronic signatures in companies with 500 or more employees. Oodrive provides professional sharing, backup, and electronic signature solutions that meet demanding French and international security standards. During the current global crisis, when a majority of companies are prompting their employees to work from home or any other remote location, there is a necessity to use electronic signatures for security and productivity related purposes. This is where Oodrive comes to play by helping companies deploy electronic signatures.
WeTransfer (Netherlands)
Founder/s: Bas Beerens, Rinke Visser, Ronald Hans
Founded year: 2009
Funding: €57.7 million
WeTransfer is a leading file sharing service, which offers the simplest way to send large files anywhere around the world. It aims to enable effortless transfer of ideas between creative minds. The file sharing service offers a slew of useful tools to keep your ideas moving. During the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, WeTransfer uses its global platform to support work of creatives and causes affected by the crisis. Usually, WeTransfer donates 30% of its advertising space on its global platform to raise awareness for artists, good causes and creative work, last month, the service announced that it will donate an additional 500 million ad impressions to showcase the work of artists and organisations supporting the same during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tresorit (Switzerland)
Founder/s: Istvan Lam, Szilveszter Szebeni, Gyorgy Szilagyi
Founded year: 2011
Funding: €30 million
Tresorit is a leading end-to-end encrypted, zero-knowledge content collaboration platform designed to protect the digital valuables of individuals and organisations with its cloud services. This startup empowers medical professionals and institutions with a highly secure way to store and share protected health information and medical records. Its highest file storage and sharing service helps researchers and healthcare professionals manage files and collaborate within departments. During the global crisis, Tresorit joins the fight against COVID-19 by providing free access to remote work solutions and public education and healthcare institutions. It provides free licenses to help medical and educational institutions continue their crucial work during the period of uncertainty and disruption with its easily deployable, secure, and compliant platform.
Atlas Cloud (UK)
Founder/s: Chris Morris, Phil Richardson
Founded year: 2010
Funding: €4.9 million
UK-based Atlas Cloud is a startup that offers an entire suite of managed IT solutions. It is known for delivering secure and high-quality services to clients ranging from local SMEs to high-profile Companies such as Magnox, Experian, and Sage. Earlier this year, Atlas Cloud secured €2.1 million funding to extend its cloud computing solutions, further develop its range of solutions and other ambitious growth plans. During the global health crisis, remote workers using personal devices for work are facing issues wherein they need to store a lot of work-related information. To resolve this issue, Atlas Cloud is supporting some clients in switching to embrace public cloud technologies and virtual offerings instead of a device-led model.
Veeam (Switzerland)
Founder/s: Andrei Baronov, Ratmir Timashev
Founded year: 2006
Funding: €455 million
Swiss-based Veeam is a global leader in intelligent data management for enterprises. With offices in over 30 countries, Veeam takes data to a new state of intelligence that will automatically anticipate the requirement and demand and move securely across multi-cloud infrastructures. Veeam provides data protection built for modern business challenges such as backup modernisation, hybrid cloud acceleration, and data security and compliance. The VeeamON 2020 was scheduled to happen on May 4 was shifted online due to the coronavirus outbreak. The company continues to provide data management and cloud services to companies via online during the global pandemic outbreak.
Aiven (Finland)
Founder/s: Hannu Valtonen, Heikki Nousiainen, Mika Eloranta, Oskari Saarenmaa
Founded year: 2015
Funding: €46.4 million
Helsinki-based Aiven is a cloud tech startup that has built an automated cloud operations platform. It converts open-source distributed data systems into cloud services. Its software lets developers focus on core products instead of the underlying infrastructure. During the global pandemic outbreak, Aiven secured series B funding of $40 million (nearly €36.5 million) to strengthen its market presence and business. At the time of crisis, the startup offers a platform to abstract all the complexities of operating open-source data technologies so customers can focus on their business applications and achieve objective.
Dixa (Denmark)
Founder/s: Jacob Vous Petersen, Jakob Nederby Nielsen, Krisztian Tabori, Mads Fosselius
Founded year: 2015
Funding: €47.9 million
Dixa is a global customer service company that works with the mission to create friendships between brands and their customers, eliminate bad customer service, and breakdown tech silos. Its software unifies customer engagement across messaging, emails, and phone in a single platform to provide a better experience for both customers and agents. In the difficult time that the whole world is facing, Dixa is committed to keeping teams safe and customers happy by providing them with a completely free platform until September 30, 2020. There will be free onboarding and training sessions from Dixa professionals as well.
Contentful (Germany)
Founder/s: Sascha Konietzke, Paolo Negri
Founded year: 2013
Funding: €70.2 million
Contentful works with the mission to help the leading brands in the world manage content across their digital products and channels. It provides a content platform for enterprises to unify their content on a single hub so that there is no more content stuck in CMS silos. Also, Contentful powers content for many large enterprises that distribute content to their end customers. Now, this startup is helping organisations with content distribution during the pandemic outbreak. Along with partners such as Gatsby and Netlify, Contentful provides customisable JAMstack website template for companies all over the world. It is a website that is quick and easy to set up and is also scalable due to the various layers of caching in content delivery networks.
Cloudalize (Belgium)
Founder/s: Benny Willen, Jeffrey Meesemaecker
Founded year: 2018
Funding: €7.9 million
Cloudalize’s GPU-powered solutions deliver agility, flexibility and security for IIoT, Machine Learning, remote working and more. It offers a full range of GPU-powered cloud solutions so that businesses unlock their real potential. With Cloudalize, it is possible to manage, protect, and secure the personal and proprietary content as it doesn’t compromise on security standards such as ISO 27001 and SOC. During the time of the global health crisis, Cloudalize is aimed at making remote working much simpler. Its GPU-powered DaaS offers workers across industries safety, security, real-time collaboration and collaboration to work remotely to guarantee uninterrupted business continuation.
Main image picture credits: Contentful
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