Founding of Datto

Datto was founded in 2007 in Norwalk, Connecticut by software programmer Austin McChord. McChord initially built and marketed his own hand-made data backup devices. After securing his first customers in 2008, he built a system that allowed for data synchronization between two computers, before building a version of Zenith InfoTech that ran on Linux.

By the end of 2009, the company had $70,000 in monthly sales. When a new Datto product in 2010 caused old systems to crash, a replacement system was designed from scratch: SIRIS was released several months later as a free upgrade.

In 2011, sales were $9 million. The following year, they were at $25 million.^[8]

In July 2013 Datto acquired its UK distributor, Paradeon Technologies, expanding the company internationally.^[9]

In September 2013, the company raised $25 million in its first round of venture capital financing, which was led by General Catalyst Partners. The established business model sold products primarily through managed service providers.^[10] By 2013 the company was continuing to focus on small and mid-size businesses, with clients such as Susan G. Komen for the Cure and several NFL teams.

In 2014, Datto Inc. purchased Backupify, a cloud-to-cloud backup company. Backupify focused on backing up data on servers, complementing Datto's focus on local or private clouds.^[3]

In November 2015, the company garnered $75 million in a Series B funding round mostly led by Technology Crossover Ventures.^[3] In 2015, it became Connecticut's first "unicorn" company.^[3][4]

Datto expanded into Australia and New Zealand by opening a new office in Sydney in late 2015.^[11]

Datto had 550 employees by November 2015.^[12]

In June 2016, Datto released SIRIS 3 x 1 as the first available all-flash BCDR product with ransomware detection capability.^[13]

In July 2016, Datto opened its EMEA headquarters in Reading. Datto also opened data centers in Iceland and Germany and signed new distribution deals in Spain and Greece.^[14]

In October 2016, the company released its SIRIS 3 data protection platform.^[15]

Datto had 700 employees by January 2017.^[16]

In January 2017, Datto acquired Open Mesh.^[17]

In September 2017, Datto opened an office in Amsterdam to serve the Benelux regions.^[18]

Datto had 883 workers by October 2017, 434 of whom were in Norwalk.^[19]

Datto was acquired by Vista Equity Partners for around $1.5 billion in late 2017. As part of the deal, Datto merged with the Vista portfolio company Autotask Corporation and Austin McChord remained CEO of the combined company.^[4]

McChord resigned as CEO in October 2018, remaining on the board.^[20] In January 2019, following the announcement of McChord’s departure, Datto named Tim Weller as its new CEO. Weller joined Datto in 2017 as chief financial officer before stepping into the chief executive role. Before joining Datto, Weller was CFO at Akamai Technologies, where he led its initial public offering, and CFO at clean energy technology company Enel X.^[21]

Datto acquired Gluh, an Australian company, in July 2020. Gluh’s platform enables MSPs to simplify the procurement of IT products and services for their customers.^[22]

In October 2020, Datto became a public company via an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, selling 22 million shares to raise $594 million.^[23]

In January 2022, Datto acquired Infocyte, an Austin-based threat detection and response company.^[24][25]

In June 2022, Datto was acquired by Kaseya, another company majority owned by Vista Equity Partners, in a $6.2 billion transaction.^[26]