Episode 83: Ash Ashutosh - Founder and CEO at Actifio

Welcome to Episode 83 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Ash Ashutosh, Founder and CEO at Actifio. Ash is someone who fully embodies what it means to be a serial entrepreneur. In addition to Actifio, he also founded Serano Systems as well as AppIQ, a data storage company that was acquired by HP in 2005. Actifio, his latest company, is the world’s leading enterprise data-as-a-service platform. Powered by patented Virtual Data Pipeline™ technology, Actifio frees data from traditional infrastructure to accelerate adoption of hybrid cloud, build higher quality applications faster, and improve business resiliency and availability. Actifio is backed by some of the top venture capital firms in the industry and in case you didn’t know, the company is one of the unicorns in the Boston tech scene with a valuation of over $1B. In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of topics, like: -Ash’s background growing up in India and migrating to the US. -His early career in the tech industry, including his time at StorageNetworks, an early cloud storage company. -The details of Serano Systems and AppIQ, the first two companies that he founded. -What he learned during the time he spent as a VC at Greylock. -The aha moment behind Actifio and all the details on the company, its technology, and the massive market opportunity. -Advice for founders raising early-stage capital. -His thoughts on sharing a company’s valuation in the media after raising funding. -Plus, a lot more. Today’s episode is sponsored by Pluralsight. It is amazing what machine learning can do. With mounds of data being harvested every day, there’s so much we can learn and create. Pluralsight, the technology learning platform, is using this data for the good of tech professionals everywhere. Their AI helps you see what level your tech skills are at and recommends opportunities to keep learning. And they’re looking for help to make their algorithms even smarter. If changing the way the world learns technology through the intersection of Design, Product, Data Science and Engineering is right up your alley, apply to work at Pluralsight. Want to work here? Visit pluralsight.com/venturefizz to learn more. Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!