A few quick hitters around the SMB partner community I thought you might enjoy. I liken this to start-up news as you too can start-up the next great thing!
BitTitan $15m raise
If you’ve meet the infamous Geeman, founder and CEO of BitTitan, it’s unlikely you’ll forget him soon. Long on enthusiasm, love him or hate him, you gotta respect him. He has grown a successful business over the past nine years organically from his basement. Very hard to do, let me tell ya. So it’s no surprise that he’d ultimately prepare for a Series A round perhaps in preparation for an ultimate exit. That’s entrepreneur 101 for you. This past week, Geeman took the money. He raised $15-million from TVC Capitol in what’s it largest single investment ever. Moving forward, look for BitTitan to invest in sales and marketing, product enhancements and expanding into more geographies. Standard stuff. We’ll keep an eye on BitTitan as it puts these funds to work, perhaps raises more capital and likely pursues an exit strategy.
M&A
SolarWinds, who broke into our community a few years ago with the n-Able acquisition, has done it again. It’s snapped up LogicNow in a move underscoring RMM consolidation. It’s a natural move in a mature market. But it results in less customer choice and a diverse community sponsor ecosystem. Such is life.
The eFolder acquisition of Replibit is comes two years after its purchase of CloudFinder and three years after its purchase of Anchor. What’s interesting is that eFolder, noticeably absent from the major SMB partner event circuit in the first half of 2016, is making bets on strategic growth. With Replibit, eFolder is publically setting its sights on taking on Datto. There is some “there there” with the approach as I’ve had numerous confidential calls with Datto partners expressing dismay at new treatment that isn’t as generous, warm and loving as in the early days before Datto’s $100m cap raise earlier this year.
