Mimecast Pushes Its ’Sticky’ E-mail Archiving Services Overseas

Mimecast, an e-mail management company that targets businesses, was among the first to sell e-mail archiving, retrieval, and security as a cloud-based service, storing client data in offsite servers rather than in a client’s own machines. Founded in 2002 in London, nearly 1,000 U.S. companies have signed on since Mimecast’s 2008 foray into the U.S., according to Peter Bauer, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. He says the company’s revenue almost quadrupled from $5.5 million in 2008, to $21.2 million in 2010.

Now Mimecast, which has 235 employees and last year landed $21 million from European venture capital firm Index Ventures, is up against a growing number of competitors, including such behemoths as Symantec and Google. Bauer spoke recently to Bloomberg.com contributor Karen E. Klein about managing rapid growth, persuading his team to expand into the U.S., and competing with new services. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.