Transforming backup into "assets" Eon(, achieving a $4 billion enterprise value.

The startup Ion, which transforms enterprise backup data into analytical assets, successfully secured a new round of investment, with a valuation of $4 billion (approximately 5.76 trillion Korean won).

Ion Company attracted investments from institutions including Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greenoaks, and Bond, with Elad Gil participating in its Series D funding round, which reached $300 million (approximately 432 billion won). Compared to the funding round in November last year, its valuation has surged threefold.

The platform provided by the ion company can efficiently store and automatically restore large-scale backup data stored in the public cloud. Its core advantage lies in the ability to store data in the low-cost storage tiers of major cloud service providers that use a pay-as-you-go billing model, and by utilizing incremental backup methods that only store changed files, it can save up to 50% of costs.

To address the increasingly prominent corporate security threats posed by ransomware attacks, the Ion platform also offers the capability to store data in an indelible integrity format. Additionally, through AI-based scanning, it protects backup data from malware infections and prevents the erroneous restoration of infected backups.

The technical support of Ion Company includes a wide range of data types such as relational databases and unstructured data, and organizes file contents into Apache Parquet format. This format integrates various compression algorithms and data skipping features, aimed at ensuring both analysis speed and storage efficiency. Using the Ion platform, users can perform SQL queries directly on backup files without the need to migrate data to a separate analysis environment.

Its storage strategy automation feature is also worth noting. This feature can identify data with different retention periods based on internal compliance requirements of the enterprise and automatically apply appropriate storage rules. For example, e-commerce companies can customize strategies to retain purchase records for 2 years, while website performance data is stored for only 2 weeks.

Ophir Elrich, co-founder and CEO of Ion, emphasized the significance of this financing: “Customers not only expect efficient data storage but also anticipate the activation of the data required for artificial intelligence strategies.”

Taking this round of financing as an opportunity, the ion company plans to accelerate technology development and expand into the U.S. market. The focus will be on enhancing interoperability with major cloud services and expanding strategic technology partnerships.

Against the backdrop of the value of data backup shifting from mere storage to the core of enterprise data strategy, the rapid growth of Ion Company is seen as showcasing new possibilities at the intersection of cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence applications.