Fleetsmith Scores Series A from Upfront Ventures, Index Ventures, and Harrison Metal to Tackle Apple Device Management and Security
Puppet founder Luke Kanies joins as advisor, bets on Fleetsmith to dominate IT automation for SMBs
SAN FRANCISCO, April 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fleetsmith, the provider of secure, automated Apple device management, today announced $7.7 million in Series A funding from Upfront Ventures, with participation from seed investors Index Ventures and Harrison Metal. Additionally, Luke Kanies, founder of enterprise IT automation leader Puppet, is joining the Fleetsmith Advisory Board. With total financing of over $10 million, the company will use the capital infusion to expand across every department, including engineering, product, design, sales and marketing, and add new functions such as dedicated customer support, account executives, content marketing and analysts. Concurrently, Fleetsmith announced its flagship software offering is out of beta and generally available, with new industry-first automation and security features.
"This is a truly unique leadership team that is focusing world-class security and DevOps expertise on solving a real-world pain point for both IT and HR professionals," said Kara Nortman, Partner at Upfront Ventures. "Zack, Jesse, and the Fleetsmith team are developing cutting-edge security solutions, but packaging them into delightful, easy-to-use products that are already attracting a loyal and growing customer base. It is rare to see such a broad early customer base ranging from some of the most respected names in security to those without an in-house IT team."
Fleetsmith has emerged as one of the fastest growing next-generation SMB software companies by providing a first-of-its-kind solution to businesses' increasing Apple IT challenges. Companies already spend millions of hours per year setting up macOS, iOS, and tvOS devices manually, which is a highly inefficient and costly process. For example, a single laptop takes up to four or more hours to set up for a new employee. Further, the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that 61% of data breach victims are SMBs with under 1,000 employees.
Some SMBs are overwhelmed by the explosive growth of Apple devices, leading to inefficient IT processes and weak security practices that can affect their bottom line. As Macs, Apple TVs, and iPads move swiftly into the enterprise, these challenges are becoming even more prevalent and complex.
"Fleetsmith is automation applied perfectly, handing all of the menial work to the computer so the people do less firefighting and more strategic work. This is especially important in the mid-market because the teams are leaner and every computer counts," explained Luke Kanies, founder and former CEO of Puppet. "I'm thrilled by how far Fleetsmith has already come and what that means for the future. Their mixing the self-service experience of the cloud with the DevOps mindset is a perfect strategy for the SMB space, and I'm excited to work with them."
Fleetsmith's product is built to eliminate the pain, cost, and security challenges of manual Apple device management. It unifies IT processes across an organization's entire fleet of Apple devices during deployment, ongoing maintenance and management, reassignment, and retirement. The product delivers on the promise of the next generation of Apple device management, transforming how companies compete through better IT operations. Fleetsmith gives organizations the freedom to easily and securely add or update whichever devices they want, when they want. This translates into significantly higher employee productivity for the hundreds of companies that use Fleetsmith, including HackerOne, Monzo, and Robinhood.
"With the seed round we steadily grew our customer base. The A round allows us to win in this market, expand our team to release product features more quickly and get the word out about our unique security-first, cloud-native mindset," said Zack Blum, Fleetsmith CEO and cofounder. "Our customers already live in the cloud. We meet them where they are experiencing their greatest pain points and solve them through intuitive design and rapid but thoughtful product iteration. We are excited about the ongoing vote of confidence from top-tier investors and advisors, whose support validates our mission to bring the best in Apple device management to everyone."
About Fleetsmith
Fleetsmith automatically manages apps, settings and security preferences across a company's Apple device fleet. Founded by former IT and security leaders from Dropbox and Fandom, Fleetsmith combines world-class product and security engineering with a powerful, intuitive interface that makes advanced Apple device management available for everyone. Fleetsmith is based in San Francisco and backed by Index Ventures, Harrison Metal, and Upfront Ventures. Try it for free at fleetsmith.com.
SOURCE Fleetsmith
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