Nerdio, which empowers MSPs to monetize and manage Microsoft Azure public cloud services and Windows Virtual Desktops, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by MK Capital and backed by Nerdio CEO and co-founder, Vadim Vladimirskiy, and CRO, Joseph Landes.
Nerdio has emerged as a critical player in the Microsoft Azure partner ecosystem. The background: Thousands of VARs and MSPs successfully monetized Microsoft Office 365 and traditional SaaS services. But in many cases, the SaaS partner efforts were nothing more than a "resell" motion.
In stark contrast, many of those SaaS channel partners have struggled to monetize infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) across Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other providers. Nerdio essentially fills that void, giving MSPs tools and guidance to assist and monetize customers' Azure migrations and related cloud workload instances.
No doubt, Nerdio is at the right place at the right time. ChannelE2E has identified the Top 200 Public Cloud MSPs across Azure, AWS and GCP. But that's a small number of partners compared to the overall channel ecosystem. Nerdio's tools may help the broader MSP market -- thousands of MSPs -- compete with those successful public cloud partners.
Amid that market opportunity and industry need, distributors such as D&H, Ingram Micro and Pax8 now partner with Nerdio.
Nerdio's Next Azure Cloud Moves, Executive Perspectives
So what's next for Nerdio? The company plans to double down on Microsoft Azure product development and support -- including Windows Virtual Desktop, while expanding operations and supporting the company’s channel partners, Nerdio says.
In a prepared statement about the funding, Vladimirskiy said:
“Public cloud adoption is on the rise. It’s not slowing down anytime soon, and neither are we,” Vladimirskiy said. “We have evolved alongside the cloud industry -- starting out as an MSP, offering a private cloud business and now being all-in on Azure. Nothing illustrates our commitment to the cloud, Microsoft, and our growing impact on both, more than this financial commitment to propel Nerdio’s path forward.”
Added Landes:
“Since joining Nerdio from Microsoft, it has been such a pleasure to meet thousands of channel partners who are incredibly excited to partner with Nerdio to build a cloud practice in Microsoft Azure. There is no other company who provides the energy, time, guidance, and support needed to make the move to Azure as seamless as possible. 2019 was just a warm-up in the channel for what we have planned in 2020 and beyond.”
Concluded Bret Maxwell, general managing partner at MK Capital:
“We have deep experience in the software and cloud infrastructure sectors; and interact with plenty of emerging and innovative startups in ItaaS, IaaS and DaaS – few of which are as impactful and impressive as Nerdio and their Nerdio for Azure offering. Rarely do we have the chance to invest side-by-side with executive leaders like Vadim and Joseph who believe so strongly in their company’s mission and trajectory, which only strengthens our viewpoint that it is an incredibly exciting time to propel Nerdio’s growth forward.”
Cloud Monitoring, Management Tools
Meanwhile, the market for cloud-focused monitoring, management and automation tools remains red hot. Multiple firms have been in acquisition mode. Buyers include Cisco Systems, DataDog, Microsoft, New Relic and other players -- though quite a few of the players are only now starting to focus on MSPs as a revenue stream.
