SaaS unicorn Druva gets three US patents for data services

California-headquartered cloud management and protection firm Druva has been issued three patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its data search and deduplication services.

The patented technologies enable enterprises to optimise data protection by reducing strain on network resources, therefore resulting in lower consumption needs, said an official statement issued by Druva.

The patents for all three technologies were awarded within 2019 and they help organisations unlock the value of their data and reduce costs by almost half, the statement added. 

The first patent was awarded this April for Druva’s offering which was capable of moving old backup data to lower-cost storage while maintaining the benefits of deduplication. The patent is titled Time-based data retirement for globally deduplicated archival storage.

The second patent was awarded for optimising storage while backing up multiple versions of the same file across a collaborative data server.  This patent, titled Storage and retrieval of file-level changes on deduplication backup server, was granted in August. 

The third patent is titled Keyphrase extraction system and method. Granted this month to Druva, the patent covers how its offering can extract the most relevant phrases from unstructured data. 

“Enterprises are struggling to contain operating costs in hopes of focusing more on innovative initiatives that can move the business forward. Our new technologies are already helping more than 4,000 organisations realise the benefits of a solution that does not rely on ageing hardware while empowering them with a complete data set ready for deeper analysis and greater business value. One of Druva’s core values is to have a challenger mentality and our team continually pushes the envelope to find new solutions tuned to cloud-native technologies,” said Milind Borate, chief technology officer, Druva.

Druva was founded in 2008 by Jaspreet Singh, Borate and Ramani Kothandaraman. The three had worked together at data management firm Veritas Software. The company started operations in the cloud backup market as a licensed software company before making a foray into subscription-based cloud services in 2012.

In June, Druva raised $130 million in a funding round led by investment firm Viking Global Investors. The funding helped the company’s valuation cross the $1 billion mark, making it the second SaaS (software-as-a-service)-centric company after enterprise solutions provider Freshworks to achieve unicorn status.

The following month, Druva acquired cloud data services firm CloudLanes. The acquisition of the Microsoft Ventures-backed startup would be leveraged by Druva to expand its SaaS-based services and reduce operational costs. 

In an interview, Singh told TechCircle that data science will gain greater prominence in 2019 and help enterprises address issues surrounding data privacy.