Technology firm NetApp has agreed to acquire Manchester-founded AI storage company PEAK AIO, subject to customary completion conditions and regulatory approvals.
The proposed transaction combines the UK firm’s high-performance parallel file system with NetApp’s global platform. Venture capital trust Pembroke VCT backed the business at an early stage.
PEAK AIO was founded by CEO Mark Klarzynski to tackle data-intensive computing challenges. Its metadata architecture allows shared storage to scale alongside GPU clusters used for artificial intelligence workloads.
Fred Ursell, investment head at Pembroke Investment Managers and a director at the portfolio business, said the transaction validates backing British technical founders early.
Klarzynski said: “We built PEAK AIO on a simple but radical premise: that the AI era deserved storage infrastructure built for it, not inherited from a previous generation of computing. Legacy storage was never going to work at the scale and cost point that real AI projects demand.
“We’re excited to join NetApp as our platform, their global reach and the trust its customers place in ONTAP give our architecture a home where it can scale to the largest AI environments in the world. I could not be more proud of what the team has built, or more excited about what we build next and want to thank Pembroke for its stewardship.”
Ursell added: “Pembroke’s purpose is to back British founders early and support them through every stage of growth. PEAK AIO is one of the finest examples of what that looks like in practice. It’s a company built in Manchester, that has grown into a technology the global AI infrastructure market cannot ignore.
“This transaction is validation of that journey and a reminder of what British tech is capable of when it is given the right backing and the space to grow.”
