Itopia has raised $3.5 million in additional funding for its cloud-based workspace management platform. The new funding, which includes existing angel investors and new investors, suggests that Itopia's workspace as a service (WaaS) business is gaining momentum.
"For this round we've taken some outside capital" in addition to new investments from existing angels, according to CEO Jonathan Lieberman. "They like the progress we've made."
The new funding is co-led by John McIntire and Eric Kamisher, both early investors in Open English and other ventures, and Sean Charnock. McIntire and Kamisher will join Charnock on Itopia’s Board of Directors. Charnock's experience extends across FireEye, Kentik, DevOps.com and several other startups.
Itopia will leverage the funding to double down on MSP relationships and accelerate development efforts. Key areas of focus for the 32-person company involve mobility tools for IT managers in order to manage various assets, according to Lieberman.
WaaS, DaaS and IT Giants
In some ways, WaaS is the successor to desktop as a service (DaaS) and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). I don't know Itopia's revenue or overall financial standing, but if you poke around the market you'll hear about growing MSP engagements.
Still, Itopia isn't alone. Multiple companies in and around the MSP sector now offer WaaS solutions. For instance, Konica Minolta's All Covered business has been expanding its Citrix-based WaaS efforts. Also, NeverFail (formerly Artisan Infrastructure) acquired Vertiscale in mid-2016 for its own WaaS push.
Curiously, neither Amazon Web Services nor Microsoft have cornered the WaaS market. Amazon continues to fine-tune its Amazon Workspaces offering. And Microsoft's own Remote Desktop Services for Azure are shifting to Citrix-based technology. Moreover, neither Amazon nor Microsoft has effectively pitched the WaaS services to channel partners.
In some ways, that has left a potential void in the market. Numerous WaaS upstarts want to fill that void. For its part, Itopia's latest funding could be a sign that the company is gaining critical mass with its own services.
