CloudJumper, which was IndependenceIT’s largest white label partner, acquires approximately 60 partners in an IndependenceIT focused business unit, most of whom they expect will move to the CloudJumper platform.
Max Pruger, CloudJumper’s Chief Sales Officer
Workspace as a Service (WaaS) platform provider CloudJumper has decided to accelerate its already strong growth with its first acquisition. The company, which was spun out of nGenx a year ago, has acquired an IT services business unit in an all-cash transaction. The business unit was focused around IndependenceIT, and brings CloudJumper approximately 60 new MSP and ISV partners that actively deploy WaaS and/or cloud application delivery solutions, as well as four support staff.
The identity of the company from whom the business unit was acquired is a mystery – concealed by the terms of the contract.
“We had been looking at it for over a year, and the financials behind it made sense,” said Max Pruger, CloudJumper’s Chief Sales Officer. “We didn’t buy the company, just the business unit that was running the IndependenceIT software. CloudJumper was the largest IndependenceIT white label partner. We were the largest provider before the acquisition, and now of course are larger.”
The deal closed on the last day of December, and the partners in the acquired unit were told in early January.
“This has been received very positively by the partners,” Pruger said. “Everything has gone smoothly so far, and everything has been transitioned over except billing. February 6 is the scheduled migration day for that.”
The deal also includes the four person support staff.
“Just as important as the number of seats that came over was the support staff that had been supporting the book of business,” Pruger said. “We were a large Citrix partner, and it’s a lot easier to find Citrix admins than it is IndependenceIT admins. In addition to the four staff we acquired in the transaction, we have hired four more this month alone.”
About 10 of the partners in the acquired unit are already using CloudJumper. Pruger said that they aren’t demanding that they all switch to CloudJumper, but he also said that issues of economics and focus make it in their interest to do so.
“Our pricing is less than the competition – between 40 and 60 per cent less,” he said. “We don’t typically even lead with price because we also have a lot of orchestration and provisioning on top of it. This is our core business. Cloud workspace was not the core line of business of the company that owned the business unit. Over time, we think that these partners would have converted to us anyway.
“We have reached out to every single partner, and the response was overwhelmingly positive,” Pruger continued. “The ones actively selling WaaS in particular were very pleased.”
Pruger acknowledged that WaaS is still in its early days in the channel, but believes that the cloud is the future for this segment.
“Most partners are still selling WaaS opportunistically,” he said. “They lead with agents on the box, and if the customers says they want cloud, then they bring in us or a competitor. We think we are still a year or two ahead of the market, although this is clearly the future.”
Despite this, Pruger said the company has been posting strong momentum, doubling its business in the year since the spin-off.
“We were already growing very fast, and the expectation before the acquisition was that we would double this year again in partner size and revenue,” he said. “Even counting the acquired seats as in last year’s numbers, we still feel bullish we will still double the size this year.”
