The story of BetterCloud is rooted in the creation and innovation of Google Apps products for the thousands of organizations that use them daily. In operation since 2011, BetterCloud products have enhanced the Google App experience for over 14 million users. They have expanded into Atlanta’s tech landscape and plan to add 150 new team members in the area over the next two years.
Your Pitch:
BetterCloud is the leading provider of management and security software for cloud enabled organizations around the world. FlashPanel, its flagship product, installed by over 22,000 companies and 14 million users worldwide, is a cloud-based directory management and enterprise security application that empowers IT administrators by providing added controls, visibility, automation and more.
Owners:
David Politis (@davepolitis) is the Founder and CEO
Location:
BetterCloud has two offices – one in New York (marketing, sales, support, customer success and finance) and the other in Atlanta (engineering, product management and QA). BetterCloud’s founder, David Politis, is a graduate of Emory University and spent seven years working in Atlanta, first as the founding employee at Vocalocity (recently acquired by Vonage) and then as an early executive at Cloud Sherpas prior to moving back to his native New York, but Atlanta has always had a special draw. The city has incredible engineering talent, great schools, restaurants and culture and a thriving young startup community.
Employees:
60
Founded:
November 1, 2011
Funded or bootstrapped:
To date, BetterCloud has raised $13.25 million from leading investors including Flybridge Capital Partners, Greycroft Partners, TriBeCa Venture Partners, Bear Creek Capital, Hallett Capital and BLH Venture Partners (who are also Hypepotamus sponsors).
Price of Services(S):
BetterCloud’s flagship product, FlashPanel, is currently offered at $10 per user per year for business domains, $5 per user per year for nonprofit organizations and $2 per user per year for educational institutions. For information on pricing, visit flashpanel.com/pricing.
What Customers Get:
FlashPanel provides security and management functionality across the Google Apps suite, including Google Drive, Google Sites, Google Calendars and Google+. FlashPanel also streamlines user management, produces in depth reports, allows organizations to share contacts across their domain and pushes out standardized and customizable email signatures. For more FlashPanel features, visit flashpanel.com/features.
How’d You Get The Idea For It:
BetterCloud’s founder, David Politis, spent two years working at Atlanta-based Cloud Sherpas, the largest Google Apps reseller in the world. While at Cloud Sherpas, David interacted with thousands of Google Apps administrators and most had the same needs and requests – granular reporting and more visibility into domain activity, better security tools and easier user and group management. David and a team of seven left Cloud Sherpas to build a standalone software product for Google Apps management and security – today that product is used by more than 22,000 companies around the world.
Check back in a few weeks for part 2 of the BetterCloud Q & A.
[Photo Credit: Whitlock/Hypepotamus]
