SaaS Alerts has raised $1.2 million in early stage funding from multiple angel investors who are MSP software and IT services industry pioneers. The lineup of investors includes Gary Pica, David Bellini, Adam Slutskin, Paul Cissel, Pete Peterson, Kevin Lancaster, Paul Brady, John Barrows and Michael France, ChannelE2E has confirmed.
The funding arrives at a key time for SaaS Alerts and the MSP software industry. Indeed, thousands of MSPs have successfully extended from on-premises device monitoring to reselling SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace (formerly Google G Suite).However, most MSPs have yet to monetize the monitoring of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS applications.
SaaS Alerts addresses one of those Big Three cloud opportunities -- namely, the SaaS layer. The startup is a cybersecurity company "purpose-built for MSPs to protect and monetize customers' core SaaS business applications," the firm says.
With that focus in mind, SaaS Alerts offers a unified, real-time monitoring platform for MSPs to protect against data theft, data at risk and bad actors, the company adds.
SaaS Alerts: Angel Investors of Note
The SaaS Alerts seed funding round features funding from such MSP technology industry veterans as:
- Gary Pica, a former MSP owner who now leads TruMethods -- an MSP coaching firm.
- David Bellini, CFO at ConnectOn, and co-founder former president of ConnectWise.
- Adam Slutskin, chief revenue officer at Liongard, and former CRO at ConnectWise;
- Paul Cissel, formerly CEO of Internet & Telephone, an MSP that successfully exited to OnePath;
- Pete Peterson, CEO of Merit Solutions, a major MSP;
- Kevin Lancaster, executive VP of Kaseya and founder of ID Agent;
- Paul Brady, CEO of Gtms;
- John Barrows, CEO of JBarrows sales training; and
- Michael France, managing partner at Taylor Business Group.
In a prepared statement about the funding, Bellini said:
“The technology landscape has been evolving for a while, but the rate of change has been hastened by the pandemic. Now more than ever, MSPs need to realize the importance of protecting the SaaS applications which they and their customers use daily. Based on this transformation, I feel like SaaS Alerts is the right solution at the right time for the MSP community.
Added SaaS Alerts CEO Jim Lippie:
“When we started our fundraising efforts, it was important for us to bring in investors who truly understand the MSP industry and how it’s changing. We now feel like we have a dream team of investors who have seen the industry evolve and know exactly where it’s headed. Receiving investment from such an impressive group of MSP veterans is a real endorsement of our vision and mission at SaaS Alerts."
Lippie joined SaaS Alerts in January 2021. The move reunited Lippie with co-founders Chip Buck and Seth Bostock. The trio previously built independenceIT, a desktop as a service (DaaS) provider that ultimately joined CloudJumper and then tucked into NetApp.
SaaS Alerts will leverage the funding to accelerate R&D, sales and marketing. But to be clear: The cloud-based platform is up and running, supporting MSPs, and already processes more than two million events per day.
Next-Generation Cloud Monitoring, Management for MSPs
Meanwhile, a growing list of startups along with larger technology providers is striving to help MSPs manage and monetize SaaS, IaaS and PaaS workloads. Examples areas of development include:
- Windows Virtual Desktops: Nerdio has emerged as a major partner that helps MSPs to further automate and manage Windows Virtual Desktops on Azure.
- Public Cloud Data Protection: Numerous backup and disaster recovery (BDR) companies now run natively and protect such public clouds as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. The latest example involves Datto, which will start beta testing Datto Azure Cloud Continuity for MSPs in Q2 2021.
- Cloud Cost Management Tools: Some of the options help MSPs to optimize public clouds and mitigate runaway customer costs.
- Cloud Security Posture Management Tools: CSPM tools can help MSPs to ensure cloud services are properly configured without accidental security loopholes.
- Application Performance Management and Monitoring (APM) Tools such as DataDog, New Relic and Cisco AppDynamics, among many others.
- SaaS Monitoring Tools such as SaaS Alerts, Augmentt (from N-able veterans Gavin Garbutt and Derik Belair), and Torii. Also, Sherweb today announced a monitoring, detection and response service to safeguard Microsoft's cloud applications.
Dig into the Top 250 Public Cloud MSP list, and you'll find many MSPs on the list leveraging the monitoring, management and monetization tools mentioned above.
