Backblaze splits sales leadership to chase AI storage growth
Backblaze appointed Anuj Kumar as chief revenue officer while promoting Jason Wakeam to chief enterprise sales officer. The move gives the cloud storage company two dedicated sales leaders to pursue separate growth paths in AI infrastructure.
Kumar joins from SUSE, where he was SVP and general manager for North America. At NetApp, he grew the company's cloud business from $100 million to nearly $600 million in annual recurring revenue. His background includes roles at VMware, Rackspace, VeriSign, and Red Hat.
CEO Gleb Budman said Kumar "understands the neocloud and AI infrastructure ecosystem" and can move the company upmarket without abandoning the product-led approach that built Backblaze's customer base.
Backblaze is chasing two separate markets. On the supply side, it serves neocloud GPU providers - an estimated $14 billion storage opportunity by 2030. On the demand side, it targets AI-native developers and enterprises building applications with large datasets. The company already works with hundreds of AI companies on model training, audio and video generation, and enterprise AI application development.
Kumar said: "The buildout of AI infrastructure is one of the largest capital replatformings in the history of enterprise technology, and storage underpins it." He framed his role as making the market aware of Backblaze's advantages and building partnerships that convert awareness into revenue.
Wakeam will focus on major deals, particularly with AI platforms. He became CRO in July 2024 before the restructuring.
The sales reorganization follows other leadership moves. Backblaze hired Dan Spraggins as SVP of Engineering in January and Rhett Dillingham as SVP of Product in February.
Competitor Wasabi, which raised $70 million for AI cloud storage in January, acquired Seagate's Lyve Cloud business this month.
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