Wasabi

Wasabi Technologies emerged in 2015 from founder David Friend, a serial entrepreneur who previously led cloud backup company Carbonite through acquisition.

Updated 10 days ago Reviewed by 7wData

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S3-compatible object storage with transparent pricing and zero egress fees, marketed as a lower-cost alternative to AWS.

Wasabi Technologies emerged in 2015 from founder David Friend, a serial entrepreneur who previously led cloud backup company Carbonite through acquisition. Friend and CTO Jeff Flowers launched Wasabi's hot storage product in 2017 as a direct challenge to AWS S3's pricing model, eliminating egress fees and API charges that typically inflate cloud storage bills by 3-5x. The formula worked: the company now serves over 40,000 organizations including Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins, Liverpool Football Club, iHeartMedia, and Toshiba across 100+ countries.\n\nWasabi reached unicorn status in September 2022 at $1.1 billion valuation following a $250 million Series D.

By end of 2024, revenue had reached $160.1 million, up 19% year-over-year. In January 2026, the company raised $70 million at $1.8 billion valuation led by L2 Point Management with Pure Storage participation, explicitly earmarked for AI infrastructure expansion. That same quarter brought the acquisition of Seagate's Lyve Cloud business and a $250 million credit facility from Bain Capital—signaling aggressive buildout.\n\nThe AI pivot became concrete in late 2025 with Wasabi Fire, a premium NVMe-based storage tier at $19.99 per terabyte per month for compute-intensive model training and inference.

The company also added Covert Copy, immutable backup protecting against ransomware and insider threats, and expanded to 16 global regions including a new San Jose presence via IBM Cloud partnership.\n\nWasabi's core differentiation remains pricing transparency: hot storage at $6.99 per terabyte per month with zero egress or API request charges, typically 7x cheaper than AWS S3 Standard. The trade-off is a 90-day minimum commitment to enforce cost predictability. Competitors include Backblaze B2 (similar positioning), MinIO (on-premise), and Cloudflare R2 (zero-egress).

Employee sentiment on Glassdoor averages 4.5 stars from 78+ reviewers. Total funding now exceeds $600 million.

Who buys this

Media and entertainment companies managing large video and archive workloads
Higher education institutions requiring cost-effective data management and backup
Enterprise data protection and disaster recovery departments seeking egress-cost reduction
AI/ML teams running model training on cost-predictable infrastructure
Sports and media organizations requiring durable, accessible cold and hot storage

Publicly disclosed clients

Boston Red Sox
Boston Bruins
Liverpool Football Club
iHeartMedia
Toshiba

Strengths and what to watch

Strengths

Proven pricing differentiation (7x cheaper than AWS S3 on typical workloads) with zero egress fees eliminates the surprise billing that plagues hyperscaler adoption
Serial entrepreneur founding team with successful exit history; $70M Series in Jan 2026 and $250M credit facility signal strong investor conviction
Rapid portfolio expansion into AI (Wasabi Fire at $19.99/TB, Lyve Cloud acquisition) positions the company for enterprise AI/ML storage spend surge

Watch for

90-day minimum storage enforced through billing; may create customer friction or churn if use cases shift toward shorter-term temporary storage
Heavy reliance on AWS price-parity narrative; if hyperscalers introduce AI-optimized tiers or egress relief, Wasabi's margin advantage compresses
Lyve Cloud acquisition integration and Seagate relationship volatility; Seagate retained equity stake and cloud business track record is mixed

Recent moves

Key Information

Industry: Storage
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: United States

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Wasabi object storage?

Wasabi is an S3-compatible cloud object storage platform launched in 2017 as a lower-cost alternative to AWS S3. Founded by David Friend and Jeff Flowers, it eliminates egress and API charges, delivering storage at $6.99 per terabyte monthly—typically 7x cheaper than AWS—across 16 global regions serving 40,000+ organizations.

Does Wasabi charge egress fees?

No. Wasabi's core differentiation is zero egress fees and zero API request charges. This transparency costs roughly $6.99 per terabyte monthly. By eliminating surprise egress charges that inflate AWS bills 3-5x, Wasabi delivers predictable pricing for high-volume data transfers, ideal for media, backup, and disaster recovery workloads.

How much does Wasabi cost compared to AWS S3?

Wasabi's hot storage costs $6.99 per terabyte monthly with zero egress fees, typically 7x cheaper than AWS S3 Standard. The trade-off is a mandatory 90-day minimum commitment. For organizations moving large video archives, backups, or disaster recovery workloads, this pricing transparency eliminates AWS's surprise egress charges.

What is Wasabi Fire?

Wasabi Fire is a premium NVMe-based storage tier launched in November 2025 at $19.99 per terabyte monthly. Engineered for AI/ML teams, it accelerates compute-intensive model training and inference. The tier supports high-performance workloads requiring faster access than standard hot storage, positioning Wasabi for enterprise data science expansion.

Who uses Wasabi?

Wasabi serves 40,000+ organizations across 100+ countries. Notable clients include Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins, Liverpool Football Club, iHeartMedia, and Toshiba. Primary segments include media and entertainment (video archives), higher education (backup), disaster recovery departments, AI/ML teams, and sports organizations requiring durable, cost-effective storage infrastructure.

How much funding has Wasabi raised?

Wasabi has raised over $600 million total funding. In January 2026, it raised $70 million at $1.8 billion valuation led by L2 Point Management with Pure Storage participation. The company also secured a $250 million credit facility from Bain Capital in April 2026, earmarked for AI infrastructure expansion.

How Wasabi compares

Direct head-to-head against 3 competitors. Picked by 7wData.

Positioning: S3-compatible object storage with transparent pricing and zero egress fees, marketed as a lower-cost alternative to AWS.
Customer segments: Media and entertainment companies managing large video and archive workloads
Strengths: Proven pricing differentiation (7x cheaper than AWS S3 on typical workloads) with zero egress fees eliminates the surprise billing that plagues hyperscaler adoption
Watch for: 90-day minimum storage enforced through billing; may create customer friction or churn if use cases shift toward shorter-term temporary storage
Recent moves: Wasabi Technologies closes $250M credit facility from Bain Capital to expand cloud storage innovation

Positioning: Publicly traded S3-compatible object storage, direct price challenger to hyperscalers, pivoting toward AI workloads via neocloud partnerships.
Customer segments: SMBs, media companies, AI/ML teams, and neocloud compute providers needing predictable, affordable storage at scale.
Strengths: B2 Neo tier delivers up to 1 TB/second throughput, purpose-built for neocloud AI compute platform partnerships.
Watch for: Pay-as-you-go storage pricing raised May 2026, net cost impact versus removed API transaction fees unclear for variable workloads.
Recent moves: Launched B2 Neo for neocloud AI compute on February 23, 2026, signing the company's largest ever deal at $15M+ TCV.

Positioning: Zero-egress object storage integrated into Cloudflare's global network, targeting developers and enterprises without separate CDN costs.
Customer segments: Developer teams and SaaS companies on Cloudflare's network, enterprises prioritizing egress-free storage without additional CDN infrastructure.
Strengths: Egress-free S3-compatible storage bundled with Cloudflare's global network, eliminating CDN costs for existing Cloudflare platform customers.
Watch for: Five documented Cloudflare outages in 2025 affected R2 availability, raising enterprise concerns about single-provider infrastructure dependency.
Recent moves: Virtru added object-level cryptographic data governance to R2 in April 2026, targeting regulated enterprise storage requirements.

Positioning: S3-compatible object storage transitioning from open-source community model to paid AIStor commercial tiers, focused on private cloud.
Customer segments: Enterprises with on-premise and private cloud infrastructure requirements, DevOps teams building self-hosted S3-compatible storage layers.
Strengths: Kubernetes-native deployment with full S3-compatible API, historically the dominant self-hosted object store with billions of Docker pulls.
Watch for: Open-source community edition deprecated by April 2026, forcing existing free deployments to evaluate AIStor or switch to alternatives.
Recent moves: Community edition entered maintenance mode December 2025, repository archived February 2026, AIStor Free and Enterprise tiers launched as replacements.

Sources

wasabi.com — Products (Wasabi Hot Storage, Wasabi Fire, Covert Copy), 16 global regions, company overview
techcrunch.com — Founders David Friend and Jeff Flowers, September 2022 unicorn milestone at $1.1B, 40,000+ customer base, named clients (Red Sox, Bruins, Liverpool FC)
wasabi.com — January 2026 $70M funding round at $1.8B valuation, L2 Point Management and Pure Storage investors, total funding over $600M, managed 3+ exabytes
getlatka.com — 2024 revenue of $160.1M (19% YoY growth from 2023)
www.glassdoor.com — Glassdoor rating 4.5/5 stars from 78+ reviews, Boston headquarters location, employee satisfaction metrics
www.datacenterdynamics.com — Wasabi Fire launch November 2025, San Jose region expansion, $19.99/TB pricing for AI/ML workloads