A Pune-based software product start-up is now competing with multinationals in advanced data protection solutions. Druva , founded in 2007, already has 400 customers in 23 countries and the firm is profitable from 2008. The firm raised $5 million in series-A investment from Sequoia Capital India and the Indian Angel Network (IAN) in March 2010. Co-founder and CEO Jaspreet Singh shares the journey with FE?s Goutam Das.

Take us back to 2007. How did Druva start?

We were three of us working at Veritas and had a desire to start a tech start-up to build products from India. When the RBI announced that it would make stricter regulations for financial institutions to follow the Sarbanes?Oxley compliance, we quickly realised that Indian companies would need products to manage data risk from the disaster recovery perspective. We felt a strong need to create something for Indian companies.

How was Druva funded when it started?

We spent a couple of months speaking to a few customers and then built a strong product. I met Rehan Yar Khan from IAN by chance. He liked the idea. IAN got the product design and use-case verified from a few industry experts and they agreed to fund the project. But soon after the funding, we changed the business plan. We soon realised that Indian companies are not used to buying Indian products and it?s no fun selling cheaper products. We soon launched our laptop backup offering with some features which we believe are market-changing. The model is very scalable and has worked in our favour. The product is priced 3X the cost of IBM and Veritas.

How did the slowdown later affect the firm?

The downturn was actually a blessing in disguise for us. We tried extremely hard to cut some costs, showcase the product value and sustained the price points. Overall, it was a great learning experience for us.

What has been Druva’s fund raising experience in a reset business climate?

In the slowdown, we had two options?either work hard and sell what we had or raise more money. We chose the first. We worked hard to sustain the company and get some sales numbers in our favour. We approached Sequoia Capital a bit later into the slowdown. Sequoia acknowledged that Druva made good profits during the slowdown and then things were simpler. But I can clearly see VCs more focused on sales numbers and profitability now than just capturing customer’s mind share.