San Antonio cybersecurity firm Jungle Disk announced Monday it had acquired Los Angeles-based ElephantDrive, a consumer storage virtualization service company focused on cloud storage of photos, videos and documents.
Although CEO Bret Piatt declined to disclose the terms of the purchase, he told the Business Journal that Jungle Disk chose to invest in ElephantDrive because it meets what he calls the "three investment t's": great team, proven technology and solid market traction.
With the new merger — Jungle Disk's first major consumer-market move — ElephantDrive will be able to expand its array of cloud backup services. Jungle Disk's backup and recovery infrastructure coupled with ElephantDrive's Network-Attached-Storage will help create new consumer storage options.
ElephantDrive will operate as a separate division but continue to be led by current CEO Michael Fisher and operate in California, according to Piatt. However, Jungle Disk Chief Revenue Officer Nick Nelson will take on the role of chairman and chief revenue officer for ElephantDrive.
"Nick will continue in his duties for our B2B products in addition to his new oversight and strategy duties for ElephantDrive," Piatt told the Business Journal. He added that Nelson has long experience and expertise in building and growing consumer technology products which makes him a valuable addition to the ElephantDrive team.
Short-term, Piatt said a new version of the ElephantDrive software will be rolled out with major enhancements. Long-term, he would like to see the service available in as many languages as possible and have a more fully global outreach.
The news comes after a number of other recent Jungle Disk announcements. In 2021, the company acquired backup and disaster recovery businesses KeepItSafe, LiveVault and OffsiteDataSync.
In March, Jungle Disk announced its plans to move into a new green-friendly, energy-efficient Southtown office at 2102 S. Presa Street by the end of the year, and recently appointed new Chief Technology Officer Nathan Anderson.
Jungle Disk, founded in Atlanta in 2006, was acquired in 2009 by Rackspace Technology. In 2010, it moved its headquarters to San Antonio and was later acquired in 2016 by Porthcrawl Holdings. Rackspace has no ownership stake in the company, which has 20 data centers across North America and Europe and tens of thousands of customers.
Jungle Disk has about 120 workers in its global offices, with a number of currently posted positions available in both San Antonio and globally, according to Piatt.
