Hauling DRaaS: Unitrends CEO off to consulting job

+Comment Virtual server backup and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) startup Unitrends has lost one CEO and hired a new one.

Mike Coney, CEO since November 2009, has been thanked for his valued service and Unitrends wishes him well in his next endeavour.

Coney now describes himself as a CEO consultant.

This CEO change follows on from three exec changes announced in November 2014:

• Brad Miller hired as chief financial officer
• Existing CFO Tom Wallick steps aside to be an EVP with no public role
• Mark Campbell had a chief marketing officer role added to his chief technology officer one
• James Legg (ex-PHD Virtual CEO) was promoted to executive VP w-w field operations

(Unitrends acquired PHD Virtual in December 2013 for virtual backup and DR technologies and products. Both companies had primary investments from Insight Venture Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.)

These exec changes happened under Coney’s time as CEO.

A look at the founding and funding history is instructive:

• 1989 - Founded - this is a 25-year-old company
• Unknown - A-round
• 2005 - $8.1m B-round
• 2008 - $9m C-round
• 2010 - $3.5m - classed as C-round
• 2013 - $ unknown - from private equity

Comment

What this suggests is that the company had a private equity infusion in 2013 without there having been a formal D-round. Coney got the go-ahead to revitalise his exec team and the results of that were announced in November last year.

Weiss has a good history, with Unitrends saying: “Prior to joining Unitrends, Weiss was the chairman and CEO of Xhibit Corp, the parent company of SkyMall. Prior to that, he served as the president and chief executive of Author Solutions, a Penguin Random House Company, and played a key role in the successful sale of the company to Pearson PLC. Author Solutions was a portfolio company of private equity firm Bertram Capital, where Weiss has served as an operating partner since 2007.

"Prior to Author Solutions, Weiss was the president of McAfee, now part of Intel Security. Weiss has also held senior management positions at Ariba, BindView and BMC Software and spent more than 15 years in various sales and marketing positions at IBM.”

Board member Michael Triplett, managing director, Insight Venture Partners, provided the obligatory canned quote: "In 2015, we see unparalleled opportunity to expand our market presence around the world. We believe that Kevin Weiss is the right person to guide Unitrends through this next phase of growth. He has a proven track record of successfully transforming companies, while delivering results through improved operational expertise."

Weiss’ Unitrends brief might be to grow the sales channel, grow revenues and sell the company - purrleeezze - the VCs need their exit. ®