BetterCloud Sets Sights on Cross-Cloud Expansion, Secures $6 Million in Series B Funding to Bring IT Management and Security Suite to Salesforce.com, Zendesk and Others
New York, NY (PRWEB) September 25, 2013 -- BetterCloud, the leading provider of enterprise cloud management and security software for Google Apps, has set its sights on expanding FlashPanel, its flagship product, beyond the Google Apps suite and into new cloud territory. Expansion of the product will begin with user management and security features for leading CRM, Salesforce.com, with plans to later integrate with Zendesk and other prominent cloud software systems. To help with its multi-cloud expansion, BetterCloud has raised $6 million in Series B funding from existing investors.
FlashPanel currently serves more than 22,000 organizations with 14 million end users around the world and transitioned from beta to a freemium model earlier this month. BetterCloud introduced more than 100 new features throughout FlashPanel’s 14 month beta period and strived to maintain a close relationship with its growing customer base.
“We’ve always made it a priority to listen to and solve the pain points of our customers,” said David Politis, Founder and CEO of BetterCloud. “It's clear that companies are moving their IT infrastructure and accompanying applications to the public cloud and this trend has created a whole new set of challenges that legacy IT management software isn’t addressing. Beyond Google Apps, the majority of our customers are predominantly using cloud-based CRM products, so we’ll be addressing customer concerns here first.”
BetterCloud’s customer base isn’t unique when it comes to CRM usage. According to leading analyst firm Gartner in its report Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2011-2016, 4Q12 Update, the CRM market will grow to $9 billion by 2016. And within BetterCloud’s existing user base and among the company’s target market, Salesforce.com is the clear winner.
BetterCloud’s Salesforce.com integration will first focus on user provisioning and deprovisioning, activity auditing and general security settings. New features will integrate seamlessly with existing functionality in FlashPanel to produce the world’s only integrated Google Apps / Salesforce.com management suite. Features will be released in beta towards the end of this year.
“While the technology is revolutionary, this concept of cross-platform management isn’t new,” added Politis. “We're enabling IT admins to manage their applications through a single pane, just like BMC, IBM, HP, CA and Symantec have done before us, but we’re doing it in the cloud.”
Series B funding will help BetterCloud achieve its multi-cloud strategy and provide IT management and security tools across the cloud stack. The round, led by Flybridge Capital Partners, with participation from Greycroft Partners, TriBeCa Venture Partners, Bear Creek Capital, Hallett Capital and BLH Venture Partners, brings the company’s total venture funding to $13.25 million. The investment will primarily go towards growing the company’s engineering teams to accelerate the pace of development for Google Apps related functionality while also establishing a new team focused on building integrations with other cloud platforms.
“BetterCloud has made amazing progress since first getting involved with the company this past January,” said David Aronoff, General Partner at Flybridge and BetterCloud Board Member. “The move to Google Apps and the cloud in general is accelerating and the opportunity here is huge. We’re looking forward to the company’s continued growth.”
In addition to expanding cross-cloud, BetterCloud will maintain focus on FlashPanel’s core Google Apps functionality by enhancing existing security features to further diminish any underlying security concerns related to the cloud. In the coming months, the company will introduce:
Third party application auditing: FlashPanel will allow IT personnel to whitelist or blacklist specific applications installed via the Google Apps Marketplace.
Regular Expression Searches for Google Drive: IT administrators will be able to search their users’ Google Drive documents for information like credit card and social security numbers to ensure sensitive information is not shared improperly.
Google Drive Sharing Policies by folder: Admins will have the ability to apply Google Drive sharing policies - how items are shared and with whom - by folders, greatly reducing time spent managing overall Drive security.
Following the expansion of security features and integration with Salesforce.com and Zendesk, BetterCloud plans to expand to other cloud services, integrating with leading ERP and HR systems to ultimately become the de facto cross-cloud enterprise IT management and security suite.
About BetterCloud
BetterCloud is the leading provider of management and security software for cloud enabled organizations around the world. FlashPanel, its flagship product, installed by over 22,000 companies and 14 million users worldwide, is a cloud-based directory management and enterprise security application that empowers IT administrators by providing added controls, visibility, automation and more. BetterCloud is headquartered in New York City with engineering offices in Atlanta, GA. A privately held company, BetterCloud is backed by venture capital firms Flybridge Capital Partners, Greycroft Partners and TriBeCa Venture Partners. For more information, visit bettercloud.com.
Media Contact:
Gail Axelrod
BetterCloud, Inc.
press(at)bettercloud(dot)com
Gail Axelrod, BetterCloud, +1 (646) 355-0607 305, [email protected]
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