NetApp plans to buy Manchester AI storage startup PEAK:AIO
The startup’s metadata and parallel file-system software will be folded into ONTAP for the largest AI clusters. Terms are undisclosed and NetApp has given no date for the integration or a word on partners
- NetApp announced its intent to acquire PEAK:AIO on 25 September 2026; the release gives no financial terms.
- NetApp says the combined architecture is designed for trillions of files and multi-exabyte deployments.
- PEAK:AIO raised £5m in October 2025, with Pembroke VCT contributing £3.7m of the round.
- NetApp’s release names seven PEAK:AIO deployments, including Los Alamos National Laboratory and NHS AIDE.
For NetApp’s UK partners this is a roadmap story, not a program change. Until NetApp says which ONTAP release carries the PEAK:AIO metadata layer and when, partners bidding for GPU-cluster storage against parallel file-system specialists such as DDN, VAST Data and WEKA have nothing new to quote; the near-term value is a talking point, not margin.
The open question is PEAK:AIO’s own route to market. It has sold on standard servers through hardware partners such as Boston and PNY; whether those partners keep a product to sell, or are pointed at NetApp’s partner program, will decide whether this deal adds to the UK AI-storage channel or removes a software-only option from it.
“AI clouds need high-performance shared storage that can scale alongside growing GPU clusters while maintaining the resilience, security, and operational simplicity organizations depend on.”George Kurian, chief executive, NetApp
NetApp said on 25 September that it intends to buy PEAK:AIO, a Manchester software company whose metadata and parallel file-system code it plans to build into ONTAP, its storage software. The release gives no financial terms and says the deal is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. It comes less than a year after PEAK:AIO closed a £5m growth round.
NetApp’s stated aim is shared storage that grows in step with graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters. The release describes pairing PEAK:AIO’s scalable metadata services and standards-based parallel Network File System (NFS) access with ONTAP as the data layer, and puts the target at trillions of files and multi-exabyte deployments. PEAK:AIO’s Lattice parallel NFS metadata server, developed with Los Alamos National Laboratory, is open source.
A small vendor with a long reference list
PEAK:AIO was founded by Mark Klarzynski, now its chief technology officer, with co-founder Eyal Lemberger, and is run by chief executive Roger Cummings. In October 2025 it raised £5m in a round led by Pembroke VCT, which put in £3.7m alongside NPIF II – Praetura Equity Finance and an unnamed Silicon Valley investor, according to the investor’s announcement. NetApp’s release lists seven deployments, among them Los Alamos, NHS AIDE and the Zoological Society of London. PEAK:AIO has sold through hardware partners: its news page records a PNY partnership in January 2024 and Boston’s Igloo AI+ system, built on its software, in 2023.
Tech Monitor reported the deal on 28 September. The announcement gives no close date, no timetable for PEAK:AIO’s software reaching an ONTAP release, and no word on its standalone products or the partners that sell them.
