Panzura
Hybrid-cloud data management for unstructured data across distributed locations.
Panzura is a privately held American software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It specializes in hybrid-cloud data management software and services aimed at the enterprise market. The company’s technology enables users to access, manage, analyze, and store unstructured data through methods such as distributed data consolidation, artificial intelligence, and network load balancing.
Its main product is a global file system marketed as a unified data engine. This system supports large-scale, multi-site data workflows and cloud-based applications, and includes data protection and disaster recovery features built on an immutable object architecture. Panzura offers its software as a service, providing data management and analytics tools for observability, search, and auditing across data and storage infrastructure.
The company was founded in 2008 by Randy Chou and John Taylor, both former members of the founding software team at Aruba Networks. Initial funding came from Matrix Partners, Khosla Ventures, and Chevron Technology Ventures. Panzura raised $15 million in 2012, followed by a $25 million round in 2013 that included Meritech Capital Partners. SanDisk became a strategic investor that same year, with Alex Lam joining as a board observer. In 2020, Panzura was acquired outright by Profile Capital Management, a Chicago-based private equity firm. After most executives were replaced, the company reorganized under new management and unveiled a new brand identity in 2021.
Panzura CloudFS is a hybrid cloud file services platform that works with cloud object storage. It addresses latency issues to give users simultaneous, real-time access to petabyte-scale files from any widely distributed location. The platform is used to migrate or re-platform data, workloads, and applications to the cloud, and to consolidate data across multiple on-premises servers and cloud environments without requiring upgrades to existing IT systems. CloudFS integrates with public and private cloud object storage platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud Object Storage, EMC Atmos, Google Cloud Platform, Virtustream, Scality, Cloudian, and Wasabi Technologies.
Panzura Data Services is a multi-cloud management and data analysis layer that sits on top of CloudFS.
Quick Facts
- Industry
- Information technology
- Num Employees
- 280
- Founded
- 2008
- Hq Location
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Products
- Panzura CloudFS / Panzura Nexus / Panzura Symphony
- Founders
- Randy Chou / John Taylor
- Key People
- Karthik Ramamurthy (CEO) / Guy Churchward (Chairman)
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Panzura was founded in 2008 by Randy Chou and John Taylor, both former members of the founding software team at Aruba Networks. Initial funding came from Matrix Partners, Khosla Ventures, and Chevron Technology Ventures. The company received $15 million in funding in 2012, followed by a $25 million round in 2013 that included Meritech Capital Partners. SanDisk became a strategic investor in 2013, with Alex Lam joining as a board observer. In 2020, Panzura was acquired outright by Chicago-based private equity firm Profile Capital Management. After most executives were replaced, the company reorganized under new management and announced a new brand image in 2021. Panzura holds 37 patents as of March 2024 and has achieved FIPS 140-3 security certification from NIST for use by U.S. government agencies and contractors. The company also provides secure-erase capabilities for data destruction in compliance with NIST Special Publication 800-88 guidelines for media sanitization.
Reader's Guide
Panzura's significance lies in its hybrid-cloud file services platform, CloudFS, which overcomes latency to provide simultaneous, real-time access to petabyte-size files from widely distributed locations. This capability enables organizations to migrate or re-platform data, workloads, and applications to the cloud, and to consolidate data across multiple on-premises servers and the cloud without refreshing existing IT systems. The platform integrates with major public and private cloud object storage platforms including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud Object Storage, EMC Atmos, Google Cloud Platform, Virtustream, Scality, Cloudian, and Wasabi Technologies. Panzura Data Services extends this with multi-cloud management and data analysis, offering a unified view of unstructured data whether stored in the cloud, on premises, or at the edge, along with search, audit, and audit alerting capabilities. The company's ransomware detection overlay, Panzura Detect and Rescue, interdicts attacks within CloudFS, while Panzura Edge adds remote and mobile user access with enterprise file sync and share. Panzura Symphony provides data visibility, metadata awareness, and data motion, unifying unstructured data across cloud and on-premises storage and using metadata to extract intelligence, enable tagging, and automate data movement based on policies. The company licenses software as a service data management and data analytics services for observability, search, and auditing over data and storage infrastructure.
Did You Know?
- Panzura was founded by Randy Chou and John Taylor, both from the founding software team at Aruba Networks.
- The company was acquired outright in 2020 by Chicago-based private equity firm Profile Capital Management.
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