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Storware’s CEO, Paweł Mączka, explains how a small Polish backup specialist built a global footprint by betting early on open‑source virtualisation, and why the Broadcom/VMware saga has pushed the company into the spotlight.
When Paweł Mączka founded Storware in 2013, he and two colleagues were told they didn’t stand a chance. The backup market was already dominated by giants, and the industry’s attention was fixed almost entirely on VMware and Hyper‑V. “Everybody said it’s all about the virtualisation, it’s all about VMware,” he recalled. At the time, those two platforms held close to 90% of the market.
But Storware didn’t follow the crowd. Instead, the team focused on the corner of the market that everyone else ignored – open‑source hypervisors such as KVM and Xen. “None of the enterprise backup vendors cared about these environments,” Mączka says. Storware decided to build enterprise‑grade protection for them anyway.
It wasn’t an easy sell. “The open‑source fellows hate the commercials,” he jokes. The company even released a free version to get smaller shops on board. But Storware kept pushing, convinced that open‑source virtualisation would eventually matter. They were early with agentless protection for KVM‑based platforms, early with Proxmox support, and early with OpenStack. They also experimented with mobile backup and endpoint protection. Some ideas stuck and others didn’t, but the company kept its focus on being different rather than being big.
That long bet paid off. By 2019, major vendors including IBM, Dell and OpenText began quietly licensing Storware’s technology. “Ninety‑five percent of the market doesn’t know we are hidden behind these partnerships,” Mączka said. Their software appears under other names in big‑vendor portfolios, giving Storware credibility with enterprise customers who might otherwise hesitate to buy from a small Polish firm.
Today, around 60% of Storware’s revenue comes from direct sales, with the rest from OEM deals. The company has grown to around 50 people and €5.5m in annual revenue. It remains small, but its technology is embedded in some of the world’s largest IT ecosystems, even if most customers don’t realise it.
Broadcom, VMware and the sudden spotlight
The turning point came with Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. The resulting price rises and licensing changes sent thousands of MSPs and enterprises searching for alternatives. Suddenly, the obscure platforms Storware had supported for years, such as Proxmox, XCP‑ng, OpenStack, Nutanix AHV, were no longer fringe options. They were escape routes.
“This is one of the best things that could happen to a company like ours,” Mączka admits. MSPs forced off VMware began asking the same question: what next, and how do we protect it? Storware was already there with mature support for the platforms they were moving to.
The company has become especially strong in OpenStack, a notoriously complex environment that only a handful of backup vendors support. Storware now works closely with the Open Infrastructure Foundation and helped write its VMware‑to‑OpenStack migration toolkit. “Our ambition is to be number one in OpenStack,” Mączka says.
The demand is global, and Storware sees weekly enquiries from MSPs planning large‑scale migrations, and Storware is building virtual‑to‑virtual migration tools to support these shifts, using backup as the bridge between platforms.
The company’s strategy is shaped by its size. It avoids chasing the entire market and instead focuses on the workloads the big vendors still struggle with. It also leans heavily on OEM partnerships to reach hyperscalers and large enterprises indirectly. “The biggest players will not let you in,” Mączka said. “That’s why part of our strategy is to go through OEM.”
Storware also positions itself as a European alternative in a market dominated by US vendors. Data sovereignty matters, especially in government and regulated sectors. The company now offers European‑only cloud storage tiers and supports local‑language interfaces, including Romanian, for a major public‑sector deployment.
Despite its engineering‑led culture, Storware has also embraced the appliance model, offering hardened Linux boxes for customers who want a sealed, controlled environment. It’s a niche, but one that appeals to government and military buyers who refuse cloud‑based licensing checks and demand “’either you give us something that operates in full isolation, or we don’t buy,’” Mączka says.
Looking ahead, Storware plans to introduce OpenStack replication, its answer to Zerto‑style DR, and is exploring deeper integration with European storage vendors.
Through all of this, the company remains stubbornly independent. Investors often push for a subscription‑only model or a full SaaS pivot, but Storware refuses. Many customers still want perpetual licences, especially in regions where budgets are tied to capital expenditure or where systems must run without phoning home. “We don’t want to force customers into subscription,” Mączka says. “We want to understand real needs.”
The company’s ambition is to become the leading backup provider for OpenStack and KVM‑based virtualisation by 2030. It’s a narrow lane, but a fast‑growing one. As Mączka puts it: “We need to find something unique that differentiates us, and this is the opportunity.”
Storware may be small, but it has spent a decade building exactly the skills the market suddenly needs. In a sector where size usually wins, the company has found a way to make being small an advantage, quietly powering big names, quietly expanding its reach, and quietly waiting for the moment when the industry finally looks its way.
That moment appears to have arrived.
