Autonomy Scoops up Digital Assets from Iron Mountain

Autonomy Corporation, with dual headquarters in Cambridge, England and San Francisco, California, announced that it would acquire certain assets from Iron Mountain’s digital division including archiving, eDiscovery, and online backup for $380 million in cash.

The acquisition of assets will bring over six petabytes of data under management and more than 6,000 customers to Autonomy’s customer base, bringing its private cloud data to over 25 petabytes and total customer base to over 25,000.

Iron Mountain launched its digital business 10 years ago but recently had problems with managing the business in a rapidly changing environment with increased competition. Last fall the company conducted a strategic review of its digital business and concluded that it couldn’t continue investing in technology development and meet its return requirements, resulting in its decision to shut down some and sell key assets. Iron Mountain recently replaced its CEO, Bob Brennan, who stepped down and also resigned as a director of the company. Richard Reese replaced Brennan as Chief Executive Officer.

The deal will not include the technology escrow service and a medical records archive service and other smaller operations which were recently shut down by Iron Mountain.

The acquisition brings Autonomy solid assets at a somewhat attractive valuation, while letting current Iron Mountain Digital customers to be supported without disruption.