May 28–Unitrends, a Myrtle Beach-based software data protection company, has received a $1 million investment from a venture capital firm dedicated to helping South Carolina’s high-growth companiesexpand.
The cash will help Unitrends expand, including increasing the number of employees from 13 to 23 by early next year.
Unitrends has provided since 1987 backup, recovery and protection products and services for several organizations, including government agencies, industrial companies and the American Radio Relay League, an umbrella organization for more than 100,000 H.A.M. radio operators, officials said.
“We think they’ve got exactly the technology that has an excellent opportunity to become popular,” said Larry Wilson, co-managing partner of Columbia-based venture capital group The Trelys Funds.
Trelys, which consists of 60 investors throughout South Carolina, invests in young companies that have the potential to become large companies, Wilson said. It also has invested in iOnosphere in Greenville, a telecommunications company, and StemCo Biomedical, which makes medical products.
“We think they [Unitrends] can become a leader in data protection,” Wilson said.
The Trelys announcement comes less than two weeks after Tokyo-based Hitachi Metals purchased the Metglas Solutions Division of Honeywell’s Conway plant, which gave the Grand Strand a foothold in the production of material that will be used in the emerging market of hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles. Area officials have been trying for years to attract technology companies and help them expand in an effort to diversify the Grand Strand’s tourism-dependent economy.
The data protection products made by Unitrends is growing in importance, particularly in light of the issues surrounding homeland security, said Jacques McCormack, the company’s president.
A company’s most valuable asset is its information, which makes data protection vital, company officials said.
Unitrends’ offerings include its data protection line of software, a file-by-file backup and restore feature, and its ability to help retrieve lost computer information quickly.
“This particular product and this technology is adaptable to any environment, be it govern ment or business,” McCormack said.
Wilson and four other people were named to Unitrends board of directors: Dick Rosen, chair man of AVX Corp.; James Clark, former chief technology officer for NCR Corp.; Steve Morrison, senior partner with Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scar borough law firm; and Steve Schwartz, Unitrends’ founder and chairman.
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