The transition from antiquated hardware to streamlined software platforms has been a top priority throughout enterprise businesses in the wake of digital transformation. Despite the promise of simplicity from virtual storage solutions, the hurdles to reach modernization have stifled progress in a growing market desperate for rapid improvements. As enterprises seek a simple, cost-efficient fix for the consolidation of siloed data storage, new information technology support companies are scaling to fill industry needs.

With a recent influx of $250 million in funding from SoftBank Group Corp., enterprise storage company Cohesity Inc. is expanding its offerings to customers seeking support in data migration to the cloud. Bringing 25 years of experience in tech marketing at some of the industry’s leading companies to the Cohesity’s chief marketing officer role, Lynn Lucas (pictured) is helping to drive adoption and meet customer needs as the company grows.

“Cohesity … has been working on really reinventing secondary storage, and this is a huge market,” Lucas said. “We’re really looking forward to this investment from SoftBank along with Cisco, which is why we’re here at Cisco Live.”

Lucas sat down with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Orlando, Florida. (* Disclosure below.)

This week, theCUBE spotlights Lynn Lucas in our Women in Tech feature.

Investing in disruption

Cohesity announced SoftBank’s investment early last week, marking the company’s series D funding that follows sizeable investments from Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Cisco Investments, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and more. Cohesity is one of the larger enterprise-software organizations in SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, a small collection of businesses that notably includes Slack Technologies Inc.

SoftBank’s bet was based on Cohesity’s position as a market disruptor in its hyper-growth phase, according to Lucas. “They … felt very compelled about having an investment … to take [Cohesity chief executive officer and founder] Mohit Aron’s … vision forward to really change the world and transform secondary data and applications in the data center,” she said.

Cohesity’s strategy for disrupting the enterprise storage market is focused on bringing cloud-like simplicity to siloed legacy solutions for backup, file services, and test dev analytics. Realizing the challenges surrounding storage fragmentation many customers face, Cohesity saw the opportunity to create one seamless operating environment that can operate independently from private or public cloud.

“It’s not just a better backup; we also are a distributed file system that allows customers to put all of their secondary storage into one consolidated hyperconverged platform,” Lucas said.

A culture of collaboration

A commitment to innovation at Cohesity is what initially motivated Lucas to take the leap into becoming the company’s first CMO. A tech veteran with a resume that lists such impressive titles as vice president of global collaboration marketing at Cisco Systems Inc., CMO at Veritas Technologies LLC and more, Lucas brings a wealth of experience and a keen ability to maintain customer satisfaction at scale to her role at Cohesity.

While a number of successful rounds of funding and high-profile customers factor among the company’s attractive attributes, Lucas names Cohesity’s culture of collaboration as her primary reason for joining the team.

“When you join Cohesity, you’re on a mission. … I haven’t honestly had this much fun in tech really since Cisco, and I’m proud to be there,” she said.

The company has grown from 200 to 600 people over the past year and is devoting a significant portion of its investment funding to recruiting and hiring new talent across departments as the company scales globally.

“We are really disrupting the industry. … Cohesity is one of those architectures that will be the standard that others will be looking at in the next five to 10 years,” Lucas said.

The future of storage

Cohesity’s path to market disruption through the delivery of simplicity and agility to customers seems to be working. The strategy has earned them several significant rounds of funding, as well as the acquisition of high-profile customers like AutoNation, Hyatt, the U.S. Air Force and more. In all its work, the company maintains breaking down operational complexities as a top priority, according to Lucas.

“We’re working with a customer who was looking at having to hire seven more individuals just to manage scale out of backup and recovery. … With Cohesity, they didn’t have to hire those seven people for that; they could invest in IT. … That’s the kind of agility CIOs are looking for,” she said.

The results of the company’s work, as well as SoftBank’s decision to bet on it, point to Cohesity’s longevity. “SoftBank doesn’t invest in small companies. … They clearly see a long-term future. … They see a lot of opportunity, and we’re really looking forward to that expansion,” Lucas stated.

Above disrupting the secondary data storage market, Cohesity is even more interested in the global implications of its technologies, Lucas explained. “Mohit is really determined to make a difference in the world, make a difference in technology. … He is in this for the long haul,” she concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event. (* Disclosure: Cohesity Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cohesity nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE