Startups > MinIO

MinIO

MinIO enables enterprises to build S3-compatible object storage infrastructure anywhere.

Series B $126M total Founded 2014 Palo Alto, California

MinIO is a high-performance, S3-compatible object storage platform designed for enterprises that need complete control over their data infrastructure. Built for Kubernetes-native deployments across edge, on-premises, and cloud environments, it enables organizations to run their own S3-compatible storage without vendor lock-in. The software-defined architecture optimizes for AI/ML workloads, analytics, and large-scale data processing, with support for objects up to 50TB and deployment flexibility that traditional cloud storage cannot match.

Problem solved

Enterprises need high-performance, S3-compatible object storage they can control and deploy on their own infrastructure, without vendor lock-in or the performance limitations of cloud-only solutions.

Target customer

Enterprise organizations, financial services, telecommunications, and digital payments companies requiring private, high-performance object storage for AI/ML, analytics, and data lakehouse workloads with strict data sovereignty requirements.

Website LinkedIn Crunchbase

Founders

Anand Babu Periasamy

Co-Founder, CEO

Prior Co-Founder and CTO at Gluster, angel investor at Treasure Data and H2O.ai, deep distributed systems expertise.

Garima Kapoor

Co-Founder, COO

Co-founder of MinIO with operational and business leadership background.

Harshavardhana

Co-Founder

Co-founder focused on distributed systems and cloud infrastructure.

Frederick Kautz

Founder

Listed as founder on Crunchbase with focus on object storage systems.

Funding history

Seed $3.3M June 17, 2015 Led by General Catalyst, Index Ventures · Unknown

Series A Unknown Unknown Led by Nexus Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, General Catalyst · Unknown

Series B $103M January 26, 2022 Led by Intel Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 · Dell Technologies Capital, General Catalyst, Nexus Venture Partners

Total raised: $126M

Industries

Cloud Storage Big Data Data Center Open Source Internet Software

Pricing

Dual-licensing model: Community Edition under AGPLv3 (no longer maintained as of February 2026); Enterprise Edition (AIStor) available via subscription with production SLA/SLO-backed support and commercial licensing. Enterprise pricing not publicly disclosed.

Notable customers

Intel, Nomura, Solvinity, more than half of Fortune 500 companies

Integrations

Kubernetes, Trino, Apache Spark, container orchestration platforms

Website

min.io/

Competitors

AWS S3

MinIO is self-hosted and on-premises focused with no vendor lock-in, whereas S3 is cloud-only; MinIO optimized for specific performance use cases while S3 is broader cloud storage service.

Cloudian

Broader hybrid cloud storage platform with multiple storage modes; MinIO focused specifically on high-performance S3-compatible object storage.

Portworx

Primarily container storage platform; MinIO specialized in object storage for data-intensive workloads.

WEKA

File storage focused with AI/ML optimizations; MinIO object storage with S3 compatibility as core differentiator.

Why this matters: MinIO has captured enterprise mindshare as the de facto open-source S3-compatible storage standard, used by half of Fortune 500 and achieving $126M in funding, particularly from infrastructure investors like Intel Capital and SoftBank. Its Kubernetes-native architecture and focus on AI/ML workloads position it as critical infrastructure for the data lakehouse and edge computing trends reshaping enterprise data architecture.

Best for: Enterprises processing large-scale data workloads (AI/ML, analytics, data lakes) that require self-hosted, high-performance, S3-compatible object storage with deployment flexibility across edge, on-premises, and cloud environments.

Use cases

Data Platform Modernization for Telecommunications

A global telecom leader built a Data Platform team using MinIO to centralize data infrastructure, enabling faster insights into customer experience and business operations. The self-hosted approach provided control over sensitive customer data while supporting real-time analytics at scale.

Payment and Fraud Detection Analytics Migration

A leading payment infrastructure provider migrated from legacy Hadoop to a MinIO-powered data lakehouse on Kubernetes, achieving 65% reduction in fraud model runtime, 5x increase in workload capacity, and significant cost savings. The high-performance object storage enabled real-time fraud detection across 400+ million customers.

AI/ML Workload Acceleration

Organizations training large machine learning models use MinIO for storing training datasets and model artifacts. The high-throughput object storage with 50TB object size support and Kubernetes-native deployment provides the infrastructure required for compute-intensive AI/ML pipelines without cloud provider costs.

Alternatives

AWS S3 Cloud-only with vendor lock-in, but broader AWS ecosystem integration; choose AWS S3 if you want managed service and don't need self-hosted control.

Cloudian Offers hybrid cloud storage with block and file modes in addition to object storage; choose Cloudian if you need multi-modal storage in single platform.

WEKA File-based storage optimized for AI/ML with parallel processing; choose WEKA if you need shared file system semantics rather than object storage API.

FAQ

What does MinIO do? +

MinIO is a high-performance, S3-compatible object storage platform that enterprises can deploy on their own infrastructure. It enables organizations to build self-hosted data storage for AI/ML, analytics, and large-scale data workloads without vendor lock-in, supporting objects up to 50TB and deployment flexibility across edge, on-premises, and cloud environments.

How much does MinIO cost? +

MinIO offers a Community Edition under AGPLv3 license (no longer actively maintained); the Enterprise Edition (AIStor) is available via subscription with production SLA/SLO support and commercial licensing. Enterprise pricing is custom and not publicly disclosed—contact sales for quotes.

What are alternatives to MinIO? +

AWS S3 (cloud-only, managed), Cloudian (hybrid multi-modal storage), WEKA (file storage for AI/ML), and Portworx (container storage). Choose based on deployment model, performance requirements, and whether you need on-premises or cloud flexibility.

Who uses MinIO? +

More than half of Fortune 500 companies use MinIO, including Intel, Nomura, and major telecommunications, digital payments, and financial services organizations. It's particularly popular with enterprises handling data lakes, AI/ML workloads, and analytics requiring self-hosted infrastructure.

How does MinIO compare to AWS S3? +

MinIO is self-hosted and on-premises focused, offering complete data control and deployment flexibility, whereas S3 is cloud-only and vendor-locked. MinIO is optimized for specific high-performance use cases and costs, while S3 provides broader AWS ecosystem integration and managed service benefits. Choice depends on whether you prioritize control and sovereignty (MinIO) or ecosystem integration (S3).