How Barracuda Acquired Intronis -

When Barracuda announced plans to acquire Intronis for $65 million today, the deal ended a one-year journey for Barracuda and a roughly six-month or so journey for Intronis. Here's how the two companies met on the converging road to security, cloud storage and managed services, according to executive interviews with ChannelE2E.

Barracuda is well-known in the network security market. Intronis has a dramatically different model, promoting cloud storage to managed services providers (MSPs) that offer the backup, disaster recovery and business continuity services to their end users. Barracuda is publicly held and Intronis had been owned by private equity firms.

"About 98 to 99 percent of our business comes through the channel," said Brian Babineau (pictured), VP of product and channel marketing at Barracuda. "About nine to 12 months ago, we heard about VARs transitioning to MSPs, and pure MSPs accelerating their businesses. We started raising our periscope and keeping our ears to the ground at the same time. We always wanted to make a splash in this market and we were fortune to find someone for a deal like this.

"It's all about growth," added Rick Faulk, CEO of Intronis. "We were looking to raise more capital to drive growth both here and abroad. We were going to raise private equity money or find a strategic partner... a partner like Barracuda. We hired Needham and Company and started down the path. The path converged recently with Barracuda. It's all about growth."

Needham and Co. is an investment management and asset management firm. I could be wrong, but I suspect Needham tested the M&A waters by reaching out to multiple IT companies about potentially acquiring Intronis.

Barracuda expects to complete the Intronis buyout in the next few months, and will announce the Intronis management organization at that time. It sounds like MSPs should not expect dramatic changes. Intronis CEO Rick Faulk and Intronis Channel Chief Neal Bradbury intend to stay with the business for the long haul, the duo told ChannelE2E.

"Neal and I are here for the long-term," Faulk said. "This was a growth story when I joined intronis two and a half years ago. And it's all about growth now."

Added Bradbury (pictured): "It's still business as usual in terms of working with our MSPs. With the resources Barracuda brings to the table -- it's really going to be exciting to work on this."

ChannelE2E openly wonders if Barracuda will run Intronis the way SolarWinds ran the N-able buyout of 2013 -- which was also focused on MSP engagement. "It's a great comparison," said Barracuda's Babineau. "We certainly think organizationally we have to look at it. We certainly respect that the go to market and requirements are different with this market. Your comparison isn't that far off."