Former Datto Execs to 'Reinvent' BCDR with MSP-Focused StartupFormer Datto Execs to 'Reinvent' BCDR with MSP-Focused Startup

Datto founder Austin McChord, and former chief people officer/general counsel Michael Fass, have teamed up on a new startup dedicated to providing business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions for MSPs.

The new company, called Slide, promises to be "product-first" in its approach. It also claims to be the only BCDR provider that offers native data encryption by default in transit and at rest without invoking any data storage penalties.

Slide's Austin McChord

“BCDR for MSPs has been long overdue for reinvention. At Slide, we’ve built a modern solution from scratch – free of legacy constraints – giving MSPs the security, performance and pricing flexibility they need to grow their business into the future,” McChord said.

One of Slide's first products is the Z1, an appliance engineered with a clean-room code base, NVMe-based appliance and cloud servers, mandatory encryption, and instant virtualization and block-level backup options for recovery. Slide also launches with a feature set to maximize efficiency and security. The feature, known as Active Reclaim, will optimize storage through identifying and reclaiming unused space in hopes of helping companies save funds on client backups.

Slide and BCDR

The company also plans to offer direct-to-tech support and a channel-focused approach to BCDR.

Related:Kaseya Fires Back, Rebukes Accusations from Datto Founder in Internal Email

Slide's Michael Fass

“MSPs deserve a BCDR solution that is snappy, modern, powerful and easy to use along with world class support and flexible pricing. Slide was built for MSPs, and we’re a backup company at our core. We started with the hardest problem to solve — a robust, appliance-based backup solution to back up on-prem workloads. But this is just the beginning; more products are on the way,” added Fass.

The Slide Z1 appliance is available with capacities between 1 TB and 16TB, while the Slide R1 rackmount appliance goes up to 64 TB.

McChord founded Datto in his parents' basement in 2007, leaving his role as CEO in 2018 one year after selling the business for $1.5 billion. It was later acquired by Kaseya.