MinIO names former NetApp and Pure Storage veteran Mike Marinchak as VP of Global Partner Sales to lead partner strategy; increases partner incentives for revenue growth and enhances training, enablement, and tiering for partners
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 11, 2025 -- MinIO, the leader in high-performance object storage for the exabyte AI era, today launched an expanded MinIO Partner Program. The MinIO Partner Program is designed to meet the evolving needs of global customers as the demand for object storage skyrockets with AI adoption, which is projected to exceed $20B by the end of 2025, according to IDC. The updated partner experience introduces new, unique and profitable opportunities for partners as more and more customers rely on MinIO AIStor as the de facto object-native storage system for AI.
According to Statista, the total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed globally reached 149 zettabytes in 2024 and is forecast to increase rapidly, reaching 394 zettabytes by 2028. This is in large part because AI model scale is continuing to grow rapidly, with training compute doubling every five months and dataset sizes every eight, according to Stanford University's 2025 AI Index Report. Consequently, the AI data storage market is expanding rapidly and MinIO is experiencing unparalleled growth. With multiple 8 figure exabyte scale customer engagements closed in 2024 and 149% Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) growth over the last two years, MinIO is evolving its Partner Program to meet this scale and demand.
The program now offers larger incentives for revenue growth, enhanced training courses, enablement materials, and new certifications and tiering for partners in the MinIO ecosystem. Areas of focus include channel (system integrators, appliance partners and distributors), cloud, GSI, platform, and technology partners.
MinIO's newly appointed partner leader, Mike Marinchak, formerly led channel and partner sales at NetApp and Pure Storage, and brings nearly 25 years of experience in the data storage and infrastructure industry. At MinIO, Marinchak will be focused on extending MinIO AIStor's capabilities and services through channel partners (system integrators, appliance partners and distributors), with plans to partner globally. He has been instrumental in shaping this new program and will be critical to company growth moving forward.
"After launching MinIO AIStor in late 2024 and setting a new bar for multi-exabyte AI data storage, the evolution of the MinIO Partner Program presents a massive partner opportunity as AI adoption drives exponential demand for scalable storage solutions," said Mike Marinchak, Vice President, Global Partner Sales, MinIO. "The enhancements to the program deliver significantly more value to our partners, and importantly, to our customers, as we continue to invest in expanding the reach and breadth of MinIO global offerings available."
Continuing its promise of a frictionless partnership that paves the way for customer and partner success globally, the MinIO Partner Program centers around four key pillars:
- Market Demand — Partners can expect to benefit from MinIO's massive global adoption (over 33K community Slack members and 52.8K stars and 6K forks on GitHub) and AIStor's unmatched performance, which scales linearly with capacity in a single namespace, as customers strive for storage environment modernization and cost and control optimization.
- Bundling — Partners can realize a 4-5x selling opportunity by bundling standardized storage hardware with MinIO AIStor and services to maximize ASPs.
- Sustained Profitability & Predictable Subscription Model — Partners can build recurring revenues with generous margins for the entirety of the customer engagement, across renewals, up-sell and cross-sell.
- Enablement & Certification — MinIO now empowers partners with dedicated deal support, enablement training and a paid certification program via the MinIO Academy to arm partners with the skills, knowledge, and confidence required for success.
"Trace3 and MinIO have a strong partnership and successful track record in helping joint customers meet and exceed their goals," said Jeremy Morris, General Manager, Northwest, Trace3. "We value the new opportunities the partner program delivers, especially the increased revenue opportunities, co-marketing, and advanced training—it makes us better, together. The benefits of this revamped program will help fuel our business growth as we evolve our offerings and go-to-market strategy."
As a part of the updated program, the MinIO Academy offers different levels of MinIO sales, technical, and advanced technical training. Each level of training earns a badge to recognize the skills and commitment it represents. Partners can access training via the partner portal.
New partners can apply to join the partner program here.
About MinIO
MinIO is the leader in high-performance object storage for AI. With 2B+ Docker downloads 50k+ stars on GitHub, MinIO is used by more than half of the Fortune 500 to achieve performance at scale at a fraction of the cost compared to the public cloud providers. MinIO AIStor is uniquely designed to meet the flexibility and exascale requirements of AI, empowering organizations to fully capitalize on existing AI investments and address emerging infrastructure challenges while delivering continuous business value. Founded in November 2014 by industry visionaries AB Periasamy and Garima Kapoor, MinIO is the world's fastest growing object store.
Media Contact: Tucker Hallowell, Inkhouse, minio@inkhouse.com
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