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Storage - Friday, September 12, 2008

Symantec Pays $124M For SwapDrive

Washington, DC-based Symantec has bought SwapDrive for $124M. The deal went down in June but is just announced. Founded way, way back in 1998, SwapDrive operated Backup.com and WhaleMail.com as well as a Web-based system for automatically backing up PCs. The company boasts that "Each file stored is copied on telco-grade disk drive systems and then backed up again, making data loss virtually impossible."

Swapdrive users pay $49.50 a year for 2GB of backup storage. That's expensive for sure compared to free offerings at the same levels from Mozy and Windows Live SkyDrive.

SwapDrive was backed by Core Capital, which was the sole investor in the firm. Core put in $2.6M in financing in 2000 and added more over the next two rounds.

Swapdrive acquired Reston, VA-based WhaleMail in 2001 and San Diego-based SkyDesk in 2002.

Swapdrive competes with EMC-owned Mozy, IBM owned Arsenal Digital, Hewlett-Packard’s Upline and VC-backed Carbonite.

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