Egnyte has thrown doubt over rival cloud storage provider Box’s ability to compete in Europe as its adversary prepares to IPO.
Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain told CBR that Box, which opened a London office in October, will fail in Europe because its data centres are in the US.
"Box has got a serious disadvantage that for all its European customers its data centre is in the US," he said. "They try to very carefully hide that fact.
"The European customer base is very sensitive about their data crossing the pond, more so with the NSA stuff coming out."
Jain added that Egnyte had no traction in EMEA until it established a data centre in Amsterdam one year ago, but nevertheless claimed he wants Box’s April IPO to be a success, telling his rival not to "f it up".
"If they do they will sour the market for all of us," he said. "And if they come off with a good IPO they will create a rising tide that ‘s going to lift a lot of boats, including ours."
Box hopes to raise $2bn from the stock market, while Egnyte is itself looking to gain $100m from a 2015 IPO.
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Jain said: "No schadenfraude, I really want them to do a good IPO."
The CEO was in London last week picking premises for Egnyte’s first European offices, as he tries to grow EMEA from 12% to 20% of his company’s overall revenue.
"The goal this year is that if we make the right moves and aggressively build the team out I’m expecting that number to grow out to around 20%," he explained.
An investment round late last year produced nearly $30m, much of which is fuelling Egnyte’s expansion, with 65% being spent on marketing the cloud storage and file-sharing brand.
Success in London may see further expansion across Europe, Jain said.
CBR has sought comment from Box.
Picture of Vineet Jain.
