Cohesity company profile: valuation, funding & revenue

This Cohesity company profile covers the company's valuation, revenue, funding rounds, investors and history. Cohesity works in software, with a focus on data security and backup. It was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. Its latest valuation on record is About US$7 billion (December 2024). Every figure links to a public source, and anything the company hasn't disclosed is marked as such.

Revenue

About US$1.6 billion — Pro forma annual revenue (company-stated at deal announcement), as of February 2024. Source: SiliconANGLE.

Funding history

Cohesity timeline

Key dates from the sources on this page, oldest first. Metric snapshots are listed after the funding events.

• 2013 — Cohesity is founded in San Jose by Mohit Aron.
• Apr 2020 — Growth round: US$250M, valuing the company at About US$2.5B. Investors: SoftBank Vision Fund and others.
• Dec 2024 — Merger with Veritas data protection business: About US$1B equity and US$2B debt financing (reported), valuing the company at About US$7B (combined company). Investors: Haveli Investments, Premji Invest, Madrona and others; Carlyle becomes a shareholder.

Investors

Overview

Cohesity sells software that protects, backs up and recovers organisations' data, and helps them respond to ransomware and other cyberattacks. Enterprises store data across on-premises servers, cloud platforms and software-as-a-service applications, and they need copies that can be restored quickly if systems fail or attackers encrypt their files. Cohesity's platform manages backups across these environments, detects threats in backup data, isolates copies so attackers cannot tamper with them, and increasingly applies AI to search and analyse stored data.

Cohesity was founded in 2013 by Mohit Aron, a co-founder of Nutanix and an early engineer on Google's file system, and is led by chief executive Sanjay Poonen, formerly of VMware and SAP. In December 2024 it completed a combination with the data protection business of Veritas Technologies, which had been owned by Carlyle. The companies said the combined business would be valued at about US$7 billion with pro forma annual revenue of about US$1.6 billion, according to SiliconANGLE and FinTech Global. Cohesity has said it is preparing for a possible IPO, with reports pointing to a 2026 timeframe; no listing had occurred at the time of writing.

Products

• Backup and recovery: protecting virtual machines, databases, file systems, cloud workloads and SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365.
• NetBackup: Veritas's long-established enterprise backup software, now part of Cohesity.
• Cyber resilience: immutable backups, isolated vaults, threat detection and clean-room recovery after ransomware.
• Data security posture: classification and monitoring of sensitive data in backups.
• Gaia: AI-powered search and question answering across backed-up data.

Funding

Cohesity raised venture funding from investors including Sequoia Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund, Sapphire Ventures and others. In April 2020 it raised a US$250 million round at a valuation of about US$2.5 billion. It shelved plans for a 2021 IPO. To finance the Veritas transaction, it raised about US$1 billion of equity from a group including Haveli Investments, Premji Invest and Madrona, and about US$2 billion of debt, according to reports. Carlyle, Veritas's owner, became a Cohesity shareholder. Investors including Nvidia were reported among participants around the deal.

Business model

Cohesity sells software subscriptions and, through Veritas, has a large base of maintenance and subscription customers. Pricing depends on the amount of data protected and the products used. The combination brought tens of thousands of enterprise customers and significant recurring revenue, along with opportunities to move Veritas customers to newer subscription and cloud offerings.

Competition

Cohesity competes with Rubrik, which went public in 2024; Veeam; Commvault; Dell; IBM; and cloud-native backup providers such as Druva. Storage companies such as Vast Data and Weka compete for broader data infrastructure budgets. Its main advantages are its scale after the Veritas deal and its combined product portfolio.

Cohesity at a glance

Cohesity is a San Jose data security and backup company founded in 2013 by Mohit Aron and led by Sanjay Poonen. In December 2024 it combined with Veritas's data protection business, creating a company valued at about US$7 billion with about US$1.6 billion in pro forma annual revenue. It has signalled plans for a possible IPO.

Timeline

• 2013: founded by Mohit Aron.
• 2020: raises a US$250 million round at about US$2.5 billion.
• 2021: pauses IPO plans.
• 2022: Sanjay Poonen becomes CEO.
• February 2024: announces a deal to combine with Veritas's data protection business.
• December 2024: completes the combination at a valuation of about US$7 billion.
• 2025–2026: prepares for a possible IPO.

Why backup became a security product

Ransomware attackers encrypt organisations' data and demand payment to restore it. Increasingly, they also target backups, so victims cannot recover without paying. As a result, backup has shifted from an IT housekeeping task to a core part of cybersecurity. Modern backup platforms keep immutable copies that cannot be changed or deleted, detect unusual changes that might indicate an attack, and provide isolated environments to recover clean data. Security teams now evaluate backup vendors alongside other security tools.

The Veritas combination

Veritas was one of the oldest names in enterprise backup, with its NetBackup product used by many large organisations. Combining it with Cohesity gave Cohesity a large installed base and revenue, while Veritas customers gained access to Cohesity's newer technology. Integrating two large companies is challenging: products must be aligned, sales teams combined, and customers reassured that their existing systems will be supported. The deal also added significant debt, which a future IPO could help reduce.

Who funds Cohesity

Cohesity's investors include SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital, Carlyle, Haveli Investments, Premji Invest, Madrona, Coatue and Sapphire Ventures, with Nvidia also reported among investors.

Valuation context

Rubrik's public market valuation provides a benchmark for Cohesity; reports said Cohesity's management aimed for a comparable valuation in an IPO. Our guides to upcoming tech IPOs, cybersecurity unicorns and AI and data infrastructure companies provide context.

Risks

• Integration: combining Cohesity and Veritas products and teams is complex.
• Debt: deal financing added significant leverage.
• Competition: Rubrik, Veeam and Commvault compete intensely.
• Legacy revenue: some Veritas revenue comes from older products that may decline.
• IPO timing: listing plans depend on market conditions.

Questions for buyers

• How quickly can you recover critical systems after ransomware?
• Are backups immutable and isolated from production credentials?
• Which workloads and SaaS applications are covered?
• What is the roadmap for NetBackup customers?

AI and backup data

Backup systems hold copies of an organisation's documents, emails, databases and files, often going back years. Cohesity's Gaia lets organisations search and ask questions of this data using AI, turning backups from an insurance policy into a resource for analysis and compliance. Using backup data for AI must be handled carefully to respect access controls and privacy rules, but it offers a way to get more value from storage that companies already pay for.

What to watch

Watch for an IPO filing, integration progress, growth in cyber resilience products and competition with Rubrik.

Takeaways

IT and security teams rely on backup as a last line of defence against ransomware. Founders can see how mergers can create scale before an IPO. Investors should watch integration and debt.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.

1. FinTech Global
2. SiliconANGLE