🔒2025 Innovator: Austin McChord built one of CT’s biggest tech success stories — his next acts include smart toilets, robot combat, more startups and transforming a polluted power plant

According to Austin McChord, true innovation tends to happen in unexpected places. “Generally, the weirder and less interesting the space, the more interesting the person who’s building the thing,” he said. McChord is pretty familiar with some of those weird and “less interesting” spaces. An inventor, serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, he is best known as the founder of Datto, a data storage and backup company. Built from the ground up by McChord, starting in his parents’ basement when he was just 21, it became, according to published reports, the first Connecticut-born startup valued at more than a billion dollars — what the entrepreneurial world calls a “unicorn.” McChord sold Datto to private equity investors Vista in 2017, and stayed on as CEO for another year before stepping away in search of a more balanced life. Since then, he’s been doing “everything, all at once,” launching his own venture capital firm, helming more startups, starting a battle robot league, and, with his wife Allison, launching a major coastal restoration project in his hometown.

The common threads in that portfolio, according to McChord, are having fun and learning to do new things. “My entire entrepreneurial career is, I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m gonna try to figure it out,” he said.

‘How things work’

To hear him tell the story, McChord became an entrepreneur essentially because he failed in the classroom. “I was not someone that enjoyed school,” he said. “I’m sure I was a total pain in the ass as a student.” His teachers gave him a computer starting in third grade because his handwriting was so poor. Before long, he grew eager to learn more about technology, teaching himself to code from library books. “Growing up, I’ve always been fascinated with how things work,” he said. A stint at his high school TV station gave him more practice at building circuits, writing computer programs and learning more about electrical engineering, but those outside enthusiasms distracted him from schoolwork. After high school, he enrolled at the Rochester Institute of Technology, majoring in electrical engineering. But he found the discipline too static, with little room for innovation or discovery. At that point, he switched to bioinformatics. “One ​of ​the ​leaders ​of ​that ​department ​was ​like, ​‘everything ​that ​you ​learn ​in ​your ​first ​two ​years won’t ​matter ​because ​it’ll ​be ​obsolete ​by ​the ​time ​you ​graduate,’” he said, “and ​that ​seemed ​really ​cool ​to ​me, that stuff was actually changing.” Leaving RIT, he faced the same problem that had dogged him since high school — his neglected coursework didn’t reflect his true abilities. With a 2.2 GPA and a semester’s worth of credits still unfinished, graduate school was out of reach. So, he moved back into his parents’ basement and decided his best option was to start a company — one that wouldn’t require him to explain his grades. “And so, that was how Datto began,” he said. Check out other 2025 Innovator profiles

Market clarity

McChord experimented with several ideas before landing on one that stuck: developing a network-attached storage (NAS) device for data backup, with the added feature of creating a second copy in the cloud. He says it had the virtue of being something he could physically build with cheap components. At the time, he was working part-time at a packaging company, handling IT tasks, and saw how small businesses like that could benefit from such a device. “If ​you ​have ​this ​external ​hard ​drive ​that ​you ​plug ​in ​and ​leave ​on ​all ​the ​time, ​it ​can ​slowly ​get ​the ​information ​to ​the ​cloud ​and ​you ​can ​make ​a ​quick ​backup ​locally ​because ​it’s ​already ​right ​there,” he said. “At ​the ​time, ​there ​were ​not ​any ​products ​that ​I ​could ​see ​that ​could ​do ​that.” He ran the idea past a few people in the field, including some of his former RIT professors, but they weren’t excited, dismissing it as neither innovative nor interesting. By then, however, he had already racked up significant credit card debt developing the device and felt compelled to push forward — knowing it would end either in success or, as he put it, “extreme failure.” His first hint of which way things might go came after he persuaded a tech blog to review the device — and the publicity generated his first wave of orders. Along with those early orders came inquiries from companies known as managed service providers, or MSPs — firms that handle IT needs for small businesses that prefer not to do so in-house. At first, McChord didn’t see the need for a middleman, but after the fourth such call, he had a lightbulb moment: this could be the key to scaling his business. “That gave us clarity of market,” he said. “Rather than trying to sell to all small businesses, which there’s a ton of noise, we could focus on this as a product for MSPs to resell.” It also took away many of the questions that small businesses might have had about trusting their data to a device built by a 20-something in his parents’ basement. The pivot worked, and he says the subsequent revenue curve was “insane.” The first year Datto was in business, it brought in $180,000. By year five, it was making $25 million and employing 100 people. Throughout this process, McChord continued to bootstrap the company, which, as it scaled, was a little frightening. “We ​never ​had ​more ​than … ​two ​or ​three ​months ​worth ​of ​cash ​in ​the ​bank,” he said. “​There ​were ​some ​times ​when we ​couldn’t ​make ​all ​of ​payroll. It was just intense.” The true scale of what he’d built hit home in 2013, when he received a $100 million buyout offer from a firm he’s never identified. It was, he says, an “unfathomable” sum of money. But McChord disliked the buyer’s plan — which involved laying off staff and relocating the company from Norwalk — so he turned it down. Still, the offer opened him up to raising capital. That same year, he attracted his first outside funding — $25 million from venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners, a move that set him, he says, inevitably on a path to an exit.

“We ​never ​had ​more ​than … ​two ​or ​three ​months ​worth ​of ​cash ​in ​the ​bank,” he said. “​There ​were ​some ​times ​when we ​couldn’t ​make ​all ​of ​payroll. It was just intense.”

By 2015, Datto had reached the vaunted $1 billion valuation, and in 2017, he found a deal he could live with, selling to Vista Partners for $1.5 billion. This time, he felt he had more power to insist on a deal that would work for his employees — who by this point numbered almost 900 — preserving things like a gold-plated healthcare plan and the perks that went into making the company culture. “If ​you ​don’t ​like ​the ​financial ​results, ​let’s ​talk ​about ​it,” he says of his attitude to Vista. “​But ​don’t ​get ​all ​in ​my ​shorts ​about ​how ​we ​do the ​minutiae — ​what ​makes ​this ​company ​great. ​And ​we ​won ​that ​battle, and that ​was ​really ​cool.” Vista also bought California-based tech company Autodesk at the same time, combining the two businesses under McChord’s leadership — and doubling his employee count. But he stayed just a year as CEO, stepping away in 2019 as Vista prepared to go public.

‘Daunting’ task

McChord describes it as a selfish decision. After 11 years of building a business, and still only in his early 30s, he was ready for other things to happen in his life. One of those things was making time and space to meet his wife Allison. They met online that year, and she says the subject of wealth came up right at the first date. “I ​was ​asking, ​well, ​how ​do ​you ​even ​deal ​with ​this? ​Like, ​what ​do ​you ​do? ​How ​do ​you ​live ​your ​life?” she recalled. Those questions did not become any easier when the two married in 2023 and began to really contemplate picking a major philanthropic project. “It ​becomes ​a ​little ​bit ​daunting ​because ​you ​want ​to ​make ​the ​right ​choice,” she said. “You ​want ​to put ​the ​money ​where ​it’s ​going ​to ​make ​the ​biggest ​difference. ​And ​it ​becomes ​a ​little ​bit ​overwhelming.” “Giving away money is harder than you might think,” McChord confirms. By 2024, the couple was ready to announce their pick. Check out other 2025 Innovator profiles

‘Horrifying’ cost

Manresa Island is a 125-acre peninsula at the mouth of Norwalk Harbor on Long Island Sound that for decades was the site of a coal- and then oil-burning power plant owned by NRG. The plant was damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and permanently closed the following year, although the massive turbine hall and smokestack remain, serving as a visible landmark for miles. The site is also heavily contaminated with coal ash, making a prime piece of Connecticut coastline wholly inaccessible to the public. The McChords first fully considered the project during a kayak outing in the Sound. “Something ​about ​the ​site ​is ​really ​magical, ​even ​from ​the ​water,” Allison said. “​And ​you’re ​like, ​man, ​I ​wish ​I ​could ​get ​on ​there. ​This ​would ​be ​such ​a ​cool ​park.”

The idea crystallized, and the two formed a nonprofit to purchase the site and take on the monumental task of transforming it into a publicly accessible nature park. Initially, they planned to demolish all the existing buildings, but that changed once they toured the property and stepped inside the massive turbine hall. From the soaring interior to the sweeping views from the roof, they realized the structures themselves were remarkable assets worth preserving. While the final master plan won’t be revealed until next year, the overall design could feature swimming pools, water slides, restaurants and event spaces, while the park will include walking paths, restored wetlands and a public beach. McChord describes the potential cost of the project as “horrifying,” noting that environmental remediation alone could reach $100 million. Still, he and his wife say they don’t plan to seek grants or public funding, believing that financing the effort themselves will give them greater control over the final outcome. It also gives them scope to innovate even during the remediation process. A forest has grown up on the coal ash deposits that connect the peninsula to the rest of the shoreline. The toxic coal ash must be dealt with before the site can be made safe, and the most straightforward plan would be to clear-cut the trees and then pave over the area, something that McChord views as an “ecological tragedy.” The couple have traveled to sites in Europe to see other former industrial sites that have been repurposed in innovative ways, and say they’re partnering with university researchers to explore new techniques for remediating the forest while saving the trees. And, as huge as that project is, Manresa is just one aspect of McChord’s rebalanced life, post-Datto.

Pushing the envelope

Immediately after McChord left Datto he did a stint as a venture capitalist in the offices of his original backer, General Catalyst. He describes the venture capital world as “irrationally optimistic.” “The weirdest, wildest stuff walks in the door every day,” he said, “and you have to decide, is this going to happen? Is this a future I believe? And then, am I going to invest in it?” Ultimately, he found the work too hands-off to be satisfying and left in search of his next entrepreneurial challenge. Since 2020, he says, he’s been “pushing all the keys on the piano down.” One part of that is keeping a foot in the venture capital world with a firm he started called Outsiders Fund, where he’s looking for innovation in those weird and less interesting spaces. “Think, other Dattos,” he says. “We’re looking for quirky, overlooked companies. There’s so many crazy things from commercial HVAC controls to managing counterfeit computer chips and supply chains to a two-sided marketplace for cattle breeders. Just really weird stuff.” He’s taken a more active role in some startups. He’s CEO of Casana, a company that’s developing a smart toilet seat that can monitor blood pressure and other health statistics. That device is currently going through the Food and Drug Administration approval process. He’s also returned to the data backup space with a new company called Slide, founded with his long-time collaborator Michael Fass. After a few years working with former Datto engineers on a new technology that can back up servers, the company launched its first product in February. Slide now has 42 employees, about half of them in Connecticut, and Fass says the success of the product launch has exceeded their already-high expectations. “We had a unique opportunity to bring back the magic, going back to our roots,” Fass said. Fass was first hired by McChord as general counsel and head of HR at Datto in 2013, characterizing himself as “the first adult in the building.” He describes McChord as a force of nature and says that after more than a decade of knowing him, the entrepreneur has not changed despite the extraordinary events of his life. “​That ​is the ​best ​compliment ​I ​can ​give ​him,” Fass said. “He ​​has ​had ​enormous ​success, but ​he ​is ​every ​bit ​as ​hungry ​and curious and ​ambitious ​and ​energized ​as ​he ​was ​as ​a ​27 ​year ​old.” He also says McChord remains eager to make changes in the technology space and elsewhere. “I’ve ​never ​seen ​a ​person ​who ​has ​a stronger ​urge ​to ​have ​an ​impact ​than ​Austin,” Fass said. That changemaking instinct applies to more than just his entrepreneurial ventures. McChord is indulging his taste for the wilder side of life by cultivating the National Havoc Robot League, which is now housed in a 65,000-square-foot building in Norwalk and airs on ESPN. Competitors from across the country fly in to build and battle their robots — with just about anything, including flamethrowers, allowed. “We have pushed that envelope so far that like, the state of Connecticut now has defined what robot combat fighting is,” McChord said. As someone who spent more than a decade nurturing an idea few others initially believed in, McChord says true innovation is incremental. “It’s almost like how stalactites build in a cave,” he said. “The innovation sort of happens in the darkness when you’re not watching.” Each small step to define new standards or push the boundaries of an industry may not feel particularly consequential in the moment, but it’s what they add up to that truly amounts to innovation, he said. “So many people struggle with that, because they sort of expect this leap, right?,” McChord said. “And you forget all of the steps in between.” Check out other 2025 Innovator profiles