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An aggressive strategy to snatch a European market of almost 400 million Euros for the backup and sharing of information online

After Oodrive, which had already been running a profit for three consecutive years, received its first instalment of 4m Euros from Iris Capital in November 2007, it sought to strengthen its development focus and extend its commercial coverage in Europe. Aiming to treble its operations in 2008-2009 up to earnings of 15 million Euros and a 100-strong workforce, Oodrive initiated its strategy by strengthening its managerial team and its focus on R & D.

Today, we witness the launch of Oodrive's expansion policy with the acquisition of BlueBackUp, a distributor of backup solutions in Northern Europe and a market leader in Belgium.

Universal adoption by a European Market

The European SaaS (Software as a Service) market of small to medium-sized businesses, comprising over 19 million enterprises, is developing rapidly.

'People's fear of externalizing data is beginning to fade. The world market is extensively adopting the SaaS model, and regulations designed to ensure the security of business data along with a financial model which is flexible in a time of crisis are accelerating this phenomenon', explains Stanislas de Remur, President-Director and co-founder of Oodrive.

An acquisition opportunity but also a shared vision

'During the process of this acquisition, our evaluation criteria concerned our complementary technological targets, the regularity of its business model, and its capacity to perform in the markets concerned. It soon became clear that BlueBackUp met our requirements'.

BlueBackUp, with a headquarters located in Belgium, has been profitable for two consecutive years, has almost a thousand clients and is set to achieve a turnover of 2 million Euros for 2008. The company is supported by a high level commercial structure and offers a catalogue of data backup services based on Evault technology.

'We are delighted to have finalized this deal and to have the chance to integrate Philip Wittman along with his whole team right into the heart of the Oodrive Group.

Philip has carried out remarkable work, driving his business for online backup for small businesses to the forefront of the Belgian market'.

Philip Wittman, Founder and Managing Director of BlueBackUp, confirms for his part: 'We see the backup market in Europe in exactly the same way and are thoroughly in support of Oodrive's aggressive strategy to become Europe's leading service provider for data backup and sharing. I share my satisfaction with the success of this operation with everyone in my team. It allows us the necessary framework and means to meet the challenge of our growth in Northern Europe'.

An acquisition at a time of crisis

At a time when the ecosystem of the software and internet world is wondering whether the time has come to limit start-ups or even to scrap them altogether, Oodrive is maintaining its recruitment and its strategy of organic and overseas growth.

'With two further acquisitions in the pipeline for early 2009, BlueBackup is merely the first step. We believe that it is at a time of crisis such as this that it is essential to work on structure and organization in order to achieve pole position for when growth returns.

The recession has not affected the need to share and back up data! Our services do not demand training, integration procedures, or extravagant budgets. They appear today as the answers businesses of all sizes have been waiting for'.

On top of this, Oodrive has built its success on an economic model of great stability. The core of its income is in fact highly regular and its contract renewal rate exceeds 93 per cent. Unlike other companies in this sector, Oodrive does not run accounts or finance its contracts over a period of years but instead maintains a regular monthly income, giving it a healthy financial structure ideally suited to 2009.

'Our method has always been to keep clients at the heart of Oodrive, to give them close support, and to involve them directly in the design of the roadmaps we produce. Due to this, our most powerful allies have always been the users of our solutions. As things stand, we are bang on schedule with our initial objectives and confident in our future growth', concludes Stanislas de Remur.