Wasabi to acquire Seagate’s Lyve Cloud business

Wasabi Technologies Inc. has agreed to acquire the Lyve Cloud business from Seagate Technology Inc., expanding its position in the market for object storage compatible with Amazon Web Services Inc.’s S3 as enterprises seek alternatives to hyperscale cloud providers.

The companies disclosed the transaction in a statement released today. Financial terms were not announced, but Seagate will receive an equity stake in Wasabi as part of the deal.

Wasabi said it intends to merge Lyve Cloud’s operations into the Wasabi brand “in the long run. We are not discussing our specific plans for the Lyve brand at this time,” said Chief Financial Officer Michael Bayer.

The acquisition marks a strategic shift for both companies. Boston-based Wasabi, which focuses exclusively on cloud storage, gains an established enterprise customer base and additional scale. Seagate, long known for its mass-capacity storage hardware, is sharpening its focus on its core business while retaining upside through its ownership position.

“This acquisition strengthens our position as the world’s leading pure-play cloud storage vendor,” David Friend (pictured), co-founder and chief executive of Wasabi, said in a statement.

Launched in 2021, Lyve Cloud has been positioned as an enterprise-grade storage platform emphasizing predictable pricing, security and compliance. Seagate introduced the service to address growing demand for cost-controlled cloud storage, particularly for large-scale workloads such as backup, analytics and video.

Those same workloads are driving broader shifts in the market. Enterprises managing petabyte-scale data sets are increasingly reevaluating cloud cost models, particularly egress fees and complex pricing structures associated with hyperscale providers. Providers such as Wasabi have sought to differentiate with flat pricing and simplified billing.

“This transaction is aligned with Seagate’s strategic focus on its core mass-capacity storage business,” said Gianluca Romano, Seagate’s chief financial officer.

Wasabi also gains a partner via the Seagate equity investment. “We are looking forward to how this transaction helps us move from competing with each other to having a partnership with Seagate, a leading innovator in storage,” Bayer said.

The combination is expected to strengthen Wasabi’s position in backup and recovery use cases. Both companies maintain integrations with data protection vendors, including Veeam Software Inc., Rubrik Inc. and Commvault Systems Inc. The deal is intended to reduce operational complexity for customers managing multiple storage providers.

Seagate’s Lyve Cloud initiative had also been part of a broader effort to create an ecosystem around its storage hardware, including partnerships with managed service providers and backup vendors. By transferring the business to Wasabi, Seagate effectively exits direct competition in cloud storage services while maintaining indirect exposure through its equity stake.

The companies said Lyve Cloud customers will transition to Wasabi’s platform, which operates a global network of data centers and emphasizes compatibility with Amazon S3 application programming interfaces.

Photo: Wasabi