A year ago, Maltese software company Altaro scooped up the EY Rising Star Award. A start-up-turned-international-company which now also has offices in the United States, the UK, Macedonia, France and Germany, 80-employee Altaro took on some of the biggest names in the business this month at the UK Storage Awards… and they only went and won the Company of the Year Award!

Coming up against billion-dollar revenue and Silicon Valley behemoths, Altaro won the Editor’s Choice – Company of the Year award in London, during an awards ceremony with over 300 attendees. And it wasn’t an easy path to get here either; it took some five long months of nominations and getting through more than 47,000 online votes before Altaro finally took home the gold.

“It’s great to be formally recognised by The Storage Awards and the editorial team at Storage Magazine as Company of the Year,” Altaro CEO David Vella told Lovin Malta. “We are turning the virtual backup market on its head and the Award endorses that. It is a proud moment for all the Altaro team to have our work and efforts validated in this way.”

Altaro was founded in Malta some nine years ago. Back then, the small start-up had the team working in a dark basement on second-hand desks, but now, the software company counts more than 40,000 businesses spread over 121 countries as its clients. This global network has more than 7,000 reselling partners who recommend Altaro, and the Maltese company’s customers include behemoths like Microsoft, Xerox, Discovery Channel, Amazon, Thomson Reuters and Peugeot.

This isn’t the first prestigious award that Altaro have had the honour to place under their belt, with six other awards coming their way this year alone. Last year, the company won seven more awards, including the CRN 2017 Tech Innovator Award and the CIO Applications Top 25 Microsoft Solution Providers 2017.

The Maltese-founded (and based) software company had much in the way of stiff competition for this latest award. Companies eligible for the 2018 Company of the Year Award included Veeam, a $1 billion + revenue company with over 3,000 employees (that’s around 40 times bigger than Altaro), and Veritas, a company which 86% of all Fortune 500 companies rely on. Oh, and let’s not forget Silicon Valley heavyweights Barracuda Networks, the 1,000-employee strong company with offices in 15 different countries.

In fact, Altaro’s win was so impressive, that Storage Magazine Editor Dave Tyler felt the need to personally commend it.

“In Altaro, I see a relatively young company displaying a confidence that belies the size of their business,” Tyler said on the night. “And with a 99% customer satisfaction rating, it’s clear that I’m not the only one who thinks they’re doing something right.”

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).