Cybersecurity firm Acronis investing major growth in Arizona

Internet security firm F-Secure recently published a report covering the current landscape of cybersecurity attacks and data hygiene in the United States. The report, “Attack Landscape H1 2019,” revealed nearly three billion separate attacks had hit individual Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the first half of the year alone, a surge of 300 percent.

To combat the growing issue around cybersecurity in everything from IoT to social media to U.S. elections, security firms are trying to stay ahead of the curve with efforts to strengthen their research and development departments, coming up with solutions to help keep threats away. 

One of those companies is global cyber protection agency Acronis International, which has raised $147 million to make acquisitions, grow business more aggressively, and expand on its engineering. The data recovery company nabbed investment funding from Goldman Sachs at a valuation of more than $1 billion.

The company, which has a reach across the globe including split headquarters in Switzerland and Singapore, is using those investment funds here in Arizona, where it has a presence in Scottsdale. The company will soon see a new building open in Tempe’s thriving Tempe Town Lake business district, where it will be pumping $50 million into research and development projects around more sophisticated cybersecurity technology.

According to Gaidar Magdanurov, Chief Cyber Strategy Officer, Acronis’ R&D team in Arizona is working on several strategic projects including:

• Acronis Cyber Platform that enables third-party developers to customize, extend and integrate cyber protection into their solutions
• Acronis Cyber Infrastructure that provides the most cost-efficient and secure environment for running cyber protection solutions and data storage.
• Acronis Cyber Cloud that enables service providers and enterprise IT to deliver cyber protection services to end customers.

In July, Acronis announced it was investing in the new Tempe digs while doubling the investment of its Scottsdale office to $20 million to hire more staff to build out artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and blockchain projects.

It’s been a big year for Acronis, which reported 20-percent business growth last year and is looking to hit 30 percent by 2020.

“The revenue plan depends on the implementation of new capabilities in products, including capabilities for partners to integrate Acronis Cyber Platform, and the team in Arizona is at the core of those developments,” explains Magdanurov.

The global cybersecurity company is hiring engineers in Arizona as well as investing into joint programs with Acronis SCS – an independent software vendor and distributor for the public sector in the U.S. that is based in Scottsdale. Acronis SCS is hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony for its new initiative to decrease veteran unemployment and strengthen the cyber workforce. This initiative is in partnership with New Horizons of Phoenix and the Arizona Coalition for Military Families.

Acronis also expects to bring on new teams and technology to help build out the development of its products, including cyber protection solutions for things like data safety, privacy, authenticity, and accessibility. Additionally, Acronis will use some of the funds to develop more data centers and focus on acquiring other companies to speed up development of its product portfolio.

Currently, Acronis has more than five million consumer customers around the world as well as 500,000 separate business customers.