Retail giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has reportedly acquired E8 Storage, an Israeli firm which manufactures flash storage for cloud-based software and enterprise firms.
Sources familiar with the matter revealed details of Amazon’s acquisition of the E8 Storage. They also noted that the e-commerce giant will merge the assets of the Israeli storage firm with its Tel Aviv-based development center for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Market sources also estimate that the deal was valued between $50 million to 60 million. However, some analysts speculate that the deal was had a lower price range.
Zivan Ori, the current CEO of E8 Storage founded the company in 2012 together with its current R&D Vice President Alex Friedman. The Israeli firm employs 25 people at its office in Tel Aviv and it has so far raised $18.3 million ever since it was founded. Sources also revealed that E8 Storage employees will join the AWS team as part of the acquisition deal between the two firms.
E8 Storage’s role in the cloud storage industry
E8 Storage is an attractive acquisition deal for Amazon because it offers flash storage that is multiple times faster than the alternative solutions that are currently in the market. It also undercuts the competition as far as pricing is concerned.
The Israeli firm develops its solutions for enterprise clients that want to create their own internal cloud networks or those that want to achieve faster performance from cloud services such as AWS. E8 Storage is also highly praised for its mix of hardware and software offerings which make it easier to achieve a high degree of flexibility as far as servers are concerned. The solutions also make it easier for clients to scale up their storage capacity.
E8 Storage has also earned itself a strong reputation over the years and this has attracted partnerships with major tech players such as Mellanox and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC). It became so good at what it does that Amazon which is one of the biggest players in the server industry identified the potential value E8 Storage can offer through an acquisition. It is Amazon’s second-largest acquisition from Israel in n2019 after CloudEndure.
