Rubrik is Katana1's 'fastest growing vendor'

Nick Russell (Katana1)

Systems integrator Katana1 has named cloud data management start-up Rubrik its fastest growing vendor.

Rubrik was established in December 2013 and has invested in the Australian market since the end of 2015, with its second global customer being Brisbane-based Langs Building Supplies.

With 2,500 customers across the world, the vendor said all deals have been closed via the channel.

According to Katana1 managing director Nick Russell, Rubrik's solutions fit well with the work the company does, which is data centric and includes a lot of work in the data analytics space and data automation.

Russell told ARN that in the years Katana1 has worked with Rubrik, the vendor has been its fastest growing going "from being someone who we just started working with, to one of our largest vendor by revenue".

Established in 2011, Katana1 employs approximately 30 people and generates $30 million in revenue. Russell explained that if something impacted Rubrik's business it would definitely have an impact on K1's business and vice versa.

"We look for a relationship where we're both significant to each other and we're both looking to invest and that has definitely been the case with Rubrik," he said.

Russell said Katana1 has a "high touch" model where account managers only look after ten customers each so they have a deep understanding of the customers' needs and which technologies could solve their problems.

"We have worked with a lot of the traditional backup and data management vendors but it's never been an area that anyone's particularly excited about or really happy about whereas Rubrik customers, in our experience, are very excited that we discovered something and solved their problem, something that's been a problem for a lot of people for a long time and they are really happy to talk about it and tell others about it," Russell explained.

He said that the team got excited about the technology and so did the customers.

"That growth has been our experience here and I think that's going to continue in the years to come, where Rubrik will become if not one of our biggest, probably our biggest vendor so it's been great for us from, that's our perspective."

Last year, Katana1 was awarded a contract with the NSW Department of Education for Rubrik's back-up appliances, software and support of hybrid cloud. The three-year deal was valued at $4.9 million.

The partner has been working with Rubrik for over a year and a half and has started to welcome big customers resulting in "significant revenues".

The local presence

In Australia and New Zealand Rubrik counts on two distributors: Exclusive Networks and Nextgen.

"We deal through those guys and then they deal with the partners. It's interesting from a partner perspective, the nature of our product and the strategy of the business is not to have a lot of partners, we would rather be strategic and do more with less," Rubrik A/NZ country manager Luke McGoldrick told ARN.

The company works locally with a total of 35 partners but from a "focus and strategic perspective" they count on 12.

McGoldrick was unable to share how much the A/NZ business represents for the company saying that it needs to be careful with the information shared as a private company "potentially looking to go public" and that the region is a significant portion of the business.

Rubrik is looking to hire a channel manager and five sales executives.