Chicago-based cloud management startup Nerdio announced Tuesday it's raised $8 million in a Series A round.
Nerdio was created to help small and medium-sized businesses move to the cloud. Typically, these business owners aren’t very tech-savvy, so they turn to managed service providers to handle the process for them.
“Those managed service providers have really not learned how to build a cloud practice, Joseph Landes, the company's CRO, told Built In. “The cloud is not some sort of vision that’s out there, but it’s really the here and now. We’ve learned that, to effectively bring SMBs to the cloud, you really need to enable and empower their managed service providers to build a successful cloud practice in Azure.”
Nerdio’s technologies allow managed service providers to get Microsoft Azure and Office 365 subscriptions, which allows them to purchase Microsoft's cloud services. They take these subscriptions and connect them to the Nerdio tool, which then automatically builds the technology for them. In the end, a managed service provider doesn’t need to learn the technology very deeply to get a company on the cloud.
Landes, a Microsoft veteran, says he has been at Nerdio for about 15 months.
“Having been at Microsoft for more than 23 years, it definitely took a lot for me to leave,” Landes said. “When I met our CEO and founder Vadim Vladimirskiy, I was so blown away by the technology that I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I knew it was technology that was solving a real problem in the industry, in the ecosystem.”
In fact, Landes so believes in Nerdio’s mission that he contributed to this funding round himself. Vladimirskiy and MK Capital also invested.
“I’m pushing all my chips to the center of the table, as you would say,” Landes said. “Having come from working at Microsoft for that many years, one of our closest partners in building our company is actually Microsoft. They’re a great partner of ours, we were nominated to their Microsoft for Startups program. Our success and Microsoft’s success is really very much intertwined.”
Landes describes this latest round as a “tipping point” that will enable the company to grow even faster. He says this $8 million will be used to further develop the product and expand the company internationally.
Looking ahead, Landes says Nerdio has a lot more to do. Right now, the company is only “scratching the surface."
“When you look at Microsoft Azure and small and medium businesses that have moved to the cloud, it's really only single digits that have actually done it,” Landes explained. “I think we have a huge runway in front of us to help SMBs move to the cloud and really help their manage service providers take them to the cloud. I think the opportunity is really almost limitless.”
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