Robin Systems

Founded in 2013 by Partha Seetala and Krishna Yeddanapudi, Robin Systems, now operating as Robin.io and part of Rakuten Symphony, provides a specialized software platform for automating the deployment and management of applications on Kubernetes. Seetala, who now serves as the President of the Cloud Business Unit at Rakuten Symphony, brought over two decades of expertise in distributed systems, storage, and networking from his time at Symantec (Veritas), which became foundational to the company's direction. The firm was established to address the complexities of running data-intensive and network-intensive applications, such as databases and big data workloads, within containerized environments.

The company's journey culminated in its acquisition by Rakuten Symphony on February 28, 2022. This acquisition was a natural progression of a partnership that began over two years prior, when Rakuten Mobile utilized Robin.io's technology to deploy the world's first fully virtualized, cloud-native 5G mobile network in Japan. Before the acquisition, Robin.io had successfully raised a total of $86 million in funding over four rounds from investors including Rakuten Capital, DN Capital, and Clear Ventures, which fueled its expansion and product development.

Robin.io's business model centers on providing advanced software solutions for telecommunication operators and large enterprises. The company's product suite is designed to manage and orchestrate applications across various environments, from on-premises data centers to the cloud and the network edge. Its core offerings include the Robin Cloud Native Platform (CNP) and Robin Cloud Native Storage (CNS). CNS is an application-aware storage solution that delivers high performance and advanced data management capabilities—like snapshots, backups, and cloning—for any application running on Kubernetes. The broader CNP combines this storage functionality with an automation framework to simplify the entire lifecycle management of complex applications, including those not originally designed for microservices. Following the Rakuten acquisition, these products are now part of the Symworld Cloud suite, which aims to provide a unified, automated cloud platform for telco and enterprise clients, managing everything from bare metal to services.

Keywords: Robin.io, Rakuten Symphony, cloud-native, Kubernetes management, 5G network automation, stateful applications, application orchestration, hyper-converged infrastructure, edge computing, container storage, data management, Partha Seetala, network function virtualization, telco cloud, multi-cloud mobility, Symworld Cloud, Kubernetes storage, automation platform, virtualized network, application lifecycle management, big data clusters, cloud native platform, cloud native storage, enterprise Kubernetes