Cubbit's geo-distributed cloud: student roots, EU backing and the pitch for green, sovereign storage
- ›Cubbit began as a student project in Bologna that turned into a startup building a geo-distributed cloud that runs on users' devices rather than on centralized data centres.
- ›Founders bootstrapped early operations from a family flat and nearly ran out of money in early 2018 before winning Horizon 2020 funding and joining Techstars.
- ›The company positions its technology as private by design, GDPR friendly and energy efficient while offering S3 compatibility for enterprise use cases.
- ›Cubbit offers two products, DS3 Cloud for ready-made object storage and DS3 Composer for self-hosted, software defined deployments.
- ›Company claims include up to 80 percent S3 cost savings and up to 50 percent lower IT resource use but these depend on workloads and deployment assumptions.
- ›Founder advice emphasizes pretotyping to solve the chicken and egg problem when building startups and the importance of talent density in company culture.
From a student problem to a commercial pitch for 'green' cloud storage
Cubbit started as a pragmatic solution to a simple constraint. The company was founded by a group of students at the School of Excellence at the University of Bologna who needed affordable storage to host projects. Their response was to design a cloud that runs across the devices of its users instead of relying on centrally owned data centres. The approach is described by the company as a geo-distributed cloud that fragments, encrypts and replicates data across multiple locations chosen by customers. Cubbit frames the model as private by design, sovereign and energy efficient.
Founding story and early bootstrap
Stefano Onofri is a cofounder and co-CEO of Cubbit. The other cofounders met him at the School of Excellence in Bologna. Their backgrounds were diverse. Onofri studied International Management. His three partners studied software engineering, physics and law. The initial 'Eureka' moment came from a practical need for low cost storage. The founders reasoned that if each user contributed storage capacity then they would not need to rent a third party data centre. That idea of crowdsourcing infrastructure became the core concept behind Cubbit.
The startup hit a critical funding crunch in early 2018. With no money and the founders working other jobs, survival was uncertain. The company then won several grants including support from Horizon 2020 and in April 2018 was selected by the Techstars accelerator. The founders note that they were the first Italian startup to receive direct Techstars investment. In the years that followed, they report raising in excess of 10 million euros in equity and grants.
| Year | Milestone | Importance |
| 2018 (early) | Near failure due to lack of funds | Forced search for grants and acceleration support |
| 2018 (April) | Selected by Techstars | First Italian startup to be invested in by Techstars |
| 2018 onward | Won Horizon 2020 funding and other grants | Provided non-dilutive capital and validation |
| Following years | Raised over 10 million euros in equity and grants | Enabled scaling and product development |
The technology: what Cubbit means by a geo-distributed cloud
Cubbit positions the technology as 100 percent European and designed to help customers avoid vendor lock in. The platform includes features that the company says help satisfy GDPR, ISO 27001 and other regional regulations. It targets use cases from backup and archiving to AI data lakes and video storage. The commercial messaging emphasises sovereignty, multi-region replication and the ability to choose where data lives.
Market traction, partners and customer claims
Cubbit has public references and claims partnerships with service providers and enterprises. Examples promoted by the company include Smeup expanding capacity with Cubbit, and quotes attributed to customers such as Leonardo, Rai Way and WIIT AG. The company also highlights independent reviews and ratings like a high score on Gartner Peer Insights which they cite on their website.
These references indicate commercial traction but do not replace independent benchmarks. Performance, cost and security guarantees in enterprise and public sector contracts depend on service level agreements, certifications and audits. Public sector procurement and large regulated customers will typically require formal assessments of resilience, incident response, legal jurisdiction and supplier liability.
Advice from the founder and company culture
Onofri shares practical advice for founders that reflects his own early experience. He advises founders to talk with customers early and to 'pretotype' rather than building full scale products before validating market demand. Pretotyping means creating a low cost simulation of the eventual product to test customer willingness to adopt and to secure early adopters who will provide feedback and cash flow. He frames a minimum viable promise or demonstration as an acceptable early step.
On company culture, Onofri highlights the value of 'talent density' and cites the book No Rules Rules about Netflix as an influence. He also reads classical works such as Seneca's On the Shortness of Life to maintain perspective. When asked whom he would invite to lunch for business conversation he chose managing directors from Elon Musk's ventures to learn how they translate bold leadership into rapid execution.
Context for EU innovation policy and digital sovereignty
Cubbit sits at the intersection of several European policy priorities. The EU has placed greater emphasis on digital sovereignty, data protection and reducing dependency on non-EU cloud providers. Horizon 2020 and follow on EU funding mechanisms have supported projects that aim to strengthen Europe’s domestic technology capacity. Accelerator programmes like Techstars provide market access and investor validation that can be important for scaling.
A geo-distributed, European controlled storage alternative can align with those priorities but it must comply with public procurement rules, certification requirements and legal clarity on cross border data flows. For the public sector and highly regulated industries, the presence of certified partner data centres, clear jurisdictional guarantees and auditable security processes are necessary to translate the theoretical benefits into accepted operational standards.
Open questions and practical limitations
The Cubbit model raises a set of practical questions that deserve scrutiny when evaluating claims. Energy efficiency and cost advantages are real possibilities but are sensitive to assumptions about node utilisation, hardware lifespan, network overhead and redundancy. Latency and throughput for some workloads may be harder to guarantee on highly distributed topologies. The legal status of storage fragments across jurisdictions requires clear contracts. Finally, incentives and operational support for a distributed node network must be strong enough to keep the system secure and reliable at enterprise scale.
What to watch next
Watch for independent performance and security audits, public sector procurement wins, and third party cost comparisons that explain the assumptions behind advertised savings. Certifications such as ISO 27001 and the results of GDPR audits will matter for adoption by regulated customers. How Cubbit balances the trade offs between decentralisation, latency and operational simplicity will determine whether its model becomes a niche alternative or a mainstream option for European organisations seeking more control over their data.
This article is based on an EIC Coffee Break interview with Stefano Onofri and on public company materials. The interview includes personal anecdotes about founding, early bootstrap tactics and the company vision. Company performance claims and partner testimonials are reported as presented by the company and should be validated with independent benchmarks for technical or procurement decisions.