Rewst, which offers an automation platform purpose-built for MSPs, is getting a $31 million Series B round of funding. The new round brings Rewst’s total funding to $59 million. The new round is led by Meritech Capital, which joins existing investors, OpenView, TDF Ventures, and Florida Funders.
Rewst said in a statement that the funding will go toward accelerating Rewst’s growth and the value delivered to MSPs through the expansion of its product, customer success, education, and Robotic Operations Center (ROC).
Rewst founder and CEO Aharon Chernin told ChannelE2E that Rewst wasn’t looking for a new round of funding, but that he has been approached by a number of investors interested in the company. Chernin said he was impressed by Meritech’s portfolio of investment companies and that he hoped to learn from the firm’s experience in the market. Meritech’s portfolio includes Cisco Duo access management, AI-driven business spend management platform Coupa, enterprise-grade RPA (robotic process automation) platform UiPath, and more.
Rewst and Automation
Rewst was founded in 2000 with the idea of bringing automation – like enterprises had been doing with RPA – to the managed service provider market. The company pioneered the idea of purpose-built automation for MSPs.
Such automations are designed to save technicians time. Automation tools such as Rewst enable technicians to create mini bots that follow a prescribed process or action every time a particular event triggers that process. These automations are designed to perform manual tasks that take up a lot of technician time, freeing technicians for work that requires real problem-solving skills. The Rewst platform offers a low-code/no-code interface to help technicians create their automations.
The MSP market is ripe for automation. Almost everyone ChannelE2E has spoken to recently about 2024 trends in the MSP market named “Automation” as one at the top of the list. Yet the market is still largely un-penetrated. MSPs haven’t fully embraced the promise of RPA-type automation. Yet.
Inflation, pricing pressures, competition, a tight labor market, and other market forces are making automation an attractive proposition for MSPs that need to increase efficiency and keep pricing in line to be competitive in the market. As proof of the promise of the automation market for MSPs, PSA/RMM platform ConnectWise announced RPA-like functionality for some of its products at the November IT Nation Connect event.
Rewst is working to make the process of building automation easier for MSPs. Rewst currently offers 45 out-of-the-box integrations to platforms from companies that are core to the MSP market such as Acronis, ConnectWise, Datto, Duo, Huntress, ITGlue, Kaseya, Microsoft, OpenAI, Pax8, and SentinelOne.
Rewst said that common use cases of automation include user onboarding/offboarding, billing reconciliation, adding/removing group membership, MFA alerting, just-in-time administrative access, ticket categorization and prioritization and more.
What’s Ahead for Rewst in 2024
The new funding will help Rewst continue to invest in integrations with additional tools used by MSPs and their customers, Chernin told ChannelE2E.
What does that mean? We asked Chernin for his perspective on where he plans to take this purpose-built-for-MSPs automation platform in the next two years. First, he said, the company will accelerate its work on building integrations with other MSP tools and the products that MSP customers use, too.
“An automation platform is only good if you can integrate it with the products you are going to use,” he said.
In addition, Chernin said that the company will work on making it even easier to automate processes with Rewst. That includes investment in the “Robotic Automation Center,” or ROC. Rewst’s ROC is a group of ex-MSP automation engineers who now work for Rewst and help other MSPs create the automations they need. Much of the community effort between the ROC and Rewst’s MSP customers is currently facilitated on a Rewst community-specific Discord server. The server currently helps over 1,100 community members with their automation questions.
Network IT Easy automation engineer Dustin Lepi said that his company is averaging 75 to 80 hours per week of time savings by using Rewst.
Rewst Milestones in 2023
The new round of funding builds on several other Rewst developments in 2023, including the following:
- Crate Marketplace – Rewst released 50 pre-built automations, more than doubling its Crate Marketplace. Crates serve as ready-to-use templates, helping MSPs unlock immediate value.
- Cluck University – Rewst continued to build out its Cluck U training to help MSPs master the art of automation through live group sessions, self-serve videos, step-by-step guides, and more.
- Robotic Operations Center (ROC) – Rewst’s in-house automation experts assist customers in overcoming any hurdles during the automation process, while building and maintaining Crates.
- RoboRewsty – TheOpenAI-powered RoboRewsty is embedded in the platform to simplify the automation-building process, starting with automatic workflow documentation.
- App Platform – App Platform allows MSPs to visually design branded front-ends, or apps, for employees and customers to interact with Rewst workflows and forms.
What Meritech Says About Rewst
Alex Clayton, general partner at Meritech Capital, had this to say about his company’s investment in Rewst:
“The tailwinds behind Rewst in the MSP space are massive; the technology surface area is growing, and MSPs are forced to do more with less. Automation is the key to unlocking efficiency, happy customers, and increased bottom lines.”
