Cloudian APJ to invest into local channel programs

Cloudian Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) is set to benefit from its head office’s closing of US$23 million (A$34.5 million) in growth financing from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.

The investment, which was announced on 26 June, is expected to go towards “product innovation and sales and marketing initiatives” to meet demand for AI data lake software.

Cloudian’s APJ senior director, James Wright, told ARN the region will see a share of that financing, which will be used for channel programs and channel growth, as well as driving its AI data lake software.

Wright said Cloudian has already been investing in growing its channel and providing pipelines for it, adding that this is something the company will continue to do in the future.

“A healthy channel doesn’t stop because you don’t have funding, you’ve got to continue to invest and we’ve been on quite a growth path,” he said. “What this really enables us to do is to grow further, not only in A/NZ [Australia and New Zealand] but also into the ASEAN market, where a lot of the growth is coming from.”

Wright said Cloudian is looking to add to its business – which is made up of service and channel providers.

“We not only sell through the channel to enterprise and government, but also our business is highly driven by service providers,” he said. “We’re investing into service providers being able to sell a hybrid cloud model where we can sell cloud (backup, archive or S3) as a service.”

Cloudian currently has 30 partners in A/NZ and 25 in ASEAN. However, it doesn’t have an office in New Zealand but through its channel partners, the vendor claims it has been one of its most successful countries.

According to Wright, Cloudian has “some amazing … and very large clients in New Zealand”.

“New Zealand has its fair share of our business in the APAC [Asia Pacific] market because we’ve been successful there,” he said. “We will continue to grow and invest in that market.”

Wright also said Cloudian will look to focus on that next wave of AI and data lakes, particularly in the mature markets like A/NZ, where it can move forward with those technologies more quickly and in a larger scale.

However, Cloudian is also looking to drive more interest in countries like Malaysia, Singapore Vietnam and Indonesia. The company also wants to see that continued growth in the Philippines and Thailand.

“The ASEAN market is really where we’ll see our requirement around not only channel partners but also service providers,” said Wright. “The service providers are imperative for data sovereignty and immutability, and I see that as a big growth area.”

In April Cloudian told ARN it had stepped beyond the usual lead generation methodologies to tap into its partner focused social selling model and so far it’s proven to be a success.

The new model has resulted in opportunities for partners in A/NZ, counting more than 75 new potential deals and more than 23 partner-led quotes being reviewed at the time, with a number of them converted into deals.