Wasabi Technologies Company Profile (2026): Cloud Storage
Wasabi Technologies: The $0.0039/GB Hot Cloud Storage That Undercuts Amazon S3 by 80%
Founded June 1, 2017 in Boston by Carbonite co-founders David Friend and Jeff Flowers, Wasabi Technologies built Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage — 100% S3 bit-compatible, 1/5th the price of Amazon S3 with up to 6x the speed, zero egress and API fees — to commoditize the storage industry and serve 40,000 customers across 100 countries.
Executive Summary
Wasabi Technologies is a Boston-based cloud storage disruptor on a mission to commoditize the storage industry. Founded by cloud storage pioneers David Friend and Jeff Flowers — the co-founders of Carbonite — the company focuses solely on being the best cloud storage platform in the world, unlike first-generation cloud vendors who bundle storage as one of hundreds of services. Its flagship product, Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage, delivers 100% S3 bit-compatibility at a flat $0.0039/GB/month (1TB minimum), priced at 1/5th of Amazon S3, with up to 6x faster performance and no fees for egress or API requests. With 13 storage regions across NA, EU, and APAC, 40,000 customers in 100 countries, 13,000 partners, and 250+ employees, Wasabi doubled revenues from 2020-2021 and raised $250M in 2022 with Barclays as sole placement agent, positioning itself as the low-cost, high-performance alternative for data-intensive workloads.
Company Overview
Wasabi Technologies, Inc. is a privately held cloud storage company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded on June 1, 2017, by David Friend (CEO) and Jeff Flowers (CTO), both Carbonite co-founders with decades in cloud backup and storage, Wasabi was built with a singular focus: make cloud storage a simple commodity — fast, cheap, and reliable — without the complexity and cost penalties of hyperscalers.
The company operates 13 storage regions spanning North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, supporting data sovereignty and low-latency access for global enterprises. Unlike AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, Wasabi does not layer compute and services on top of storage; it invests exclusively in storage performance, security, and pricing simplicity. This anti-hyperscaler positioning resonates with backup vendors, media & entertainment firms, surveillance, genomics, and active archive use cases where egress costs make first-gen clouds uneconomical.
Company History
David Friend and Jeff Flowers founded Carbonite in 2005, pioneering consumer and SMB cloud backup and taking it public in 2011. Seeing that customers were increasingly punished by unpredictable egress and API fees at AWS and other first-generation providers, they started Wasabi Technologies on June 1, 2017 in Boston, MA to reinvent cloud storage from the ground up.
Wasabi's early thesis was radical simplicity: one tier of high-performance storage called Hot Cloud Storage, priced like cold storage but with hot access speeds. The company launched with 100% S3 bit-compatibility, ensuring drop-in compatibility with the entire S3 ecosystem of applications and partners. By 2020-2021, Wasabi more than doubled revenues as remote work and data growth accelerated demand for affordable secondary storage.
In 2022, Wasabi closed over $250M in funding in a round with Barclays as sole placement agent, bringing total funding to over $400M+ at the time and valuing the company as a unicorn-track disruptor. That capital fueled global region expansion to 13 regions, channel growth to 13,000 partners, and workforce growth beyond 250 employees, while serving 40,000 customers across 100 countries.
Leadership
- David Friend – Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer: Serial storage entrepreneur; co-founded Carbonite (NASDAQ: CARB), Pilot Software, FaxNet, and Sonexis. Pioneer of cloud backup, led Carbonite from startup to IPO; drives Wasabi's mission to commoditize storage.
- Jeff Flowers – Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer: Carbonite co-founder and architect of Carbonite's early storage infrastructure; storage systems veteran responsible for Wasabi's high-performance, S3-compatible distributed storage architecture and 6x speed improvements over S3.
- Leadership Ethos – Cloud Storage Purists: Founding team positions against first-generation cloud vendors — AWS, Azure, GCP — by refusing to dilute focus with compute, databases, and AI services, concentrating R&D solely on the world's best cloud storage platform.
Products & Services
Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage – Core Product
Single-tier, high-performance object storage with one predictable price: $0.0039 per GB per month with 1TB minimum. 100% S3 bit-compatible, up to 6x faster than Amazon S3, priced at 1/5th of S3. Zero egress fees, zero API request fees (no charges for PUT/GET/DELETE). Designed to make storage a commodity utility — no tiers, no complex pricing calculators. Ideal for backup, active archive, DR, surveillance, and media workloads.
Immutable Buckets & Data Protection
Wasabi offers immutable buckets to protect against data loss, accidental deletion, and ransomware. Object Lock enforces WORM (Write Once Read Many) compliance, ensuring backup copies cannot be altered or deleted within a retention window. Combined with 11x9s durability and no egress fees, customers can restore freely without penalty.
Global Infrastructure – 13 Storage Regions
13 storage regions across NA, EU, and APAC including Oregon, Virginia, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, and others. Regions provide data residency compliance, low-latency access, and redundancy. All regions share the same pricing and S3-compatible API endpoints, enabling multi-region replication via partner tools.
Ecosystem & Integrations
100% S3-compatible ecosystem means 13,000+ channel partners and 250+ integrated backup and storage applications including Veeam, Commvault, Veritas, Rubrik, and Veeam-native immutability. Partner-first distribution reaches 40,000 customers in 100 countries, with direct and channel sales for enterprise video, surveillance, and M&E.
Business Model / AI Strategy
Wasabi's business model is pure-play storage-as-a-commodity with disruptive unit economics. Revenue is subscription-based, pay-as-you-go at flat $0.0039/GB/month, billed monthly with 1TB minimum — eliminating tiering and usage-based penalties. Unlike first-gen vendors, Wasabi does not charge for egress bandwidth or API calls, aligning incentives to actually use stored data. This model wins on second-copy use cases: backup to Wasabi, disaster recovery, active archive, and long-term retention where AWS egress would be prohibitive.
Go-to-market is 90%+ channel-driven: 13,000 MSPs, VARs, and technology alliance partners resell Wasabi as low-cost backend for their own solutions. With 40,000 customers and only 250+ employees, Wasabi achieves high leverage through automation and partner distribution, competing not with features but with price/performance simplicity.
AI Strategy: Wasabi positions storage as the foundation for AI data lakes — affordable hot storage for training data, inference archives, and video datasets. By removing egress fees, AI companies can move petabytes in and out for model training without cost shock. Product roadmap includes AI-driven data management policies and integrations with AI/ML platforms, but core AI leverage is economic: commoditized hot storage enables larger, hotter AI datasets than competitors allow.
Financial Performance
| Metric | Value / Note | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | June 1, 2017 | Boston, MA by David Friend & Jeff Flowers |
| Pricing | $0.0039 / GB / month | 1TB min, 1/5 price of Amazon S3, flat |
| Performance | Up to 6x faster than S3 | 100% S3 bit-compatible, no egress/API fees |
| Revenue Growth | Doubled 2020-2021 | Pandemic-driven cloud adoption |
| 2022 Funding | $250M round | Barclays sole placement agent |
| Customers & Reach | 40K customers, 100 countries | 13K partners, 13 regions NA/EU/APAC |
| Employees | 250+ employees | Private, focus-only on storage |
| Business Model | Private – Pure-play Hot Cloud Storage | Immutable buckets, 11x9s durability |
Competitive Landscape
Wasabi competes in the S3-compatible object storage market against hyperscalers and specialized storage vendors. vs Amazon S3 – Wasabi is 80% cheaper (1/5th price), faster up to 6x, and eliminates S3's complex tiering (Standard, IA, Glacier) and punitive egress/API fees, but lacks native compute ecosystem. vs Google Cloud Storage and Azure Blob – Same price disruption, plus Wasabi's single-product focus contrasts with Azure/GCP bundling. vs Backblaze B2 and Storj – Similar commodity disruptors; Wasabi differentiates on enterprise scale (13 regions, 40K customers, $250M funding vs Backblaze open-source approach) and Veeam/Carbonite founder pedigree. vs Dell EMC ECS, IBM Cloud Object Storage – Enterprise hardware vendors; Wasabi wins on OpEx and simplicity vs CapEx appliances.
Differentiators: Founder-led by Carbonite pioneers with proven storage exits; mission to commoditize storage industry rather than upsell services; 100% S3 bit-compatibility ensures zero code change migration; flat pricing with no egress or API fees solves #1 complaint about first-gen clouds; immutable buckets for ransomware protection; 13K partner ecosystem provides outsized distribution for 250+ person company.
Key Takeaways
- Founded June 1, 2017 in Boston by Carbonite co-founders David Friend and Jeff Flowers — cloud storage pioneers with a mission to commoditize storage, building solely the best cloud storage platform unlike first-gen cloud vendors.
- Product is Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage: 100% S3 bit-compatible, $0.0039/GB/month (1TB minimum), 1/5 price of Amazon S3, up to 6x faster, with zero egress fees and zero API fees — radically simple vs tiered hyperscaler models.
- Infrastructure scale: 13 storage regions across North America, Europe, and APAC provide data residency and low latency; 40,000 customers in 100 countries trust Wasabi for backup, archive, and active data.
- Channel leverage: 13,000 partners and 250+ employees achieve 40K customer reach, with immutable buckets providing protection from data loss and ransomware via WORM compliance.
- Financial momentum: Revenues doubled from 2020-2021, followed by $250M funding in 2022 with Barclays as sole placement agent — validating private-market belief in storage commoditization thesis.
- Strategic moat is not features but economics and focus — by refusing to become a first-gen cloud and focusing solely on storage, Wasabi enables AI data lakes and petabyte-scale workloads that would be cost-prohibitive on AWS S3.
References
- Wasabi Technologies Company History – Founded June 1, 2017 Boston, MA by David Friend and Jeff Flowers, Carbonite co-founders
- Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage Product Sheet – 100% S3 bit-compatible, $0.0039/GB/mo 1TB min, 1/5 price Amazon S3, up to 6x speed, no egress no API fees
- Wasabi Immutable Buckets – Protection from data loss, WORM/ransomware compliance
- Wasabi Global Infrastructure – 13 storage regions NA EU APAC, 40K customers 100 countries, 13K partners, 250+ employees
- Wasabi Financial Performance 2020-2022 – Revenues doubled 2020-2021, $250M funding 2022 Barclays sole placement agent
- Wasabi Mission Statement – Commoditize storage industry, focus solely on best cloud storage platform unlike first-gen cloud vendors
