Q&A with Robert Peterson, CEO of Infrascale

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Can you explain exactly what Infrascale does and what problem it solves?

Infrascale provides comprehensive, cloud-based data protection by delivering industry-leading backup and disaster recovery solutions. Combining intelligent software with the power of the cloud, Infrascale removes the barriers and complexity of secure, offsite data storage, and standby infrastructure for real-time disaster recovery. Trusted and recommended by leading independent industry experts, Infrascale equips its customers with the confidence to handle the unexpected by providing greater availability, better security, and less downtime when it comes to their data.

What is your leadership philosophy and how are you applying it at Infrascale?

We are a remote workforce spread across three key geographies: U.S., Eastern Europe, and Asia. My primary leadership goal is to create a global workforce and a culture of inclusion committed to a shared aspirational mission despite our geographic lack of proximity. I’m focused on making sure we have one global team working together under a common mission and that we are supporting each other. This has been particularly important as we have been managing during a crisis since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where my priority has been the safety of our staff members. Supporting them, including their logistical and financial needs, and making sure they understand that the company prioritizes their security while continuing to grow and serve our customers, has been a shift in mindset that has brought us closer together as a global team.

What are some of the challenges Infrascale has faced and how has Carrick Capital Partners helped you to address them?

I came on board with the management team in January 2020 focused on improving operational excellence and scaling our business. We’ve had consistent support from Carrick and Route 66 (our other lead investor), and we continue to strive for those goals despite the challenges presented by COVID and the invasion of Ukraine. As focus and priority has shifted, our investors have stood by us and worked closely with us to get back to business-as-usual. The Carrick team has helped us to build a resiliency and redundancy plan for the Ukraine operation to mitigate risks, fully enable remote work, and to take preventative security measures in case the war pivoted to a more cyber-oriented attack. Carrick worked with us on developing and implementing a plan to make sure the company’s assets and operations were secure, despite the Ukrainian team’s intermittent availability. Carrick also helped by providing thought leadership over aspirational goals and metrics for our GTM effort and connected us with their global accounting and finance partner to help streamline our operations and drive profitability to extend our runway.

As CEO of Infrascale, how do you plan to leverage the relationship with Carrick?

I’ll be leveraging them to help transform our GTM, to reinvigorate our channel distribution partners and to hyperfocus our direct sales effort. The other area I’ll be collaborating with them on is the product innovation side of the business and determining where we should point our product. We are determining what delivery and feature set will meet customer needs, their journey to the cloud, and beyond. Carrick is helping us to architect for what the future is going to be and to accelerate that future product strategy.

What is your advice for other growing businesses considering private equity?

Not all private equity partners are created equal. It is important to understand how well you fit culturally and from an expectations perspective with your partner. Ask yourself how you are you aligned and can work through challenges in a prudent and cooperative way. Do they have the right bench strength to help you in areas that aren’t core to your background and expertise? Can they help you staff or resource in the right areas? Are they a good sounding board? Lots of folks have capital but not many capital providers have the resiliency to work through constant challenges and dynamics affecting the business in order to achieve long-term goals.

What are you most excited about at Infrascale and what are your goals for the next 2-5 years?

Primarily, I’m excited about creating a financially independent company. The landscape has changed. We are driving profitability to control our destiny. Through that security, we will invest in the right public cloud technology architecture that will allow us to transform from a legacy, private cloud infrastructure management company to a pure software and services SaaS-based company. We are continuing to stabilize the business both from a personnel perspective and financially. We are focused on defining a transformative product vision and strategy to innovate for years to come and to get our customers and employees excited about what Infrascale is building.

About Carrick Capital Partners
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Who We Are
A firm of enterprise software, SaaS, and technology enabled services investors and operating executives with substantial experience founding, scaling, and optimizing market leading businesses.
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Our Approach
We work with management to identify and improve critical areas of their business - focusing on the priorities that align with our experiences and that will deliver the highest strategic impact in both the short-term and long-run.
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Why We Are Different
We have a concentrated number of companies in our portfolio so that we can build substantial relationships with each management team and ensure our firm’s commitment to each company’s goals.
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