JumpCloud raises $75M Series E as cloud directory service thrives during pandemic
JumpCloud, the cloud directory service that debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield in 2013, announced a $75 million Series E today. The round was led by BlackRock with participation from existing investor General Atlantic.
The company wasn't willing to discuss the current valuation, but has now raised over $166 million, according to Crunchbase data.
Changes in the way that IT works have been evolving since the company launched. Back then, most companies used Microsoft Active Directory in a Windows-centric environment. Since then, things have gotten more heterogeneous with multiple operating systems, web applications, the cloud and mobile and that has required a different way of thinking about directory structures.
JumpCloud co-founder and CEO Rajat Bhargava says that the pandemic has only accelerated the need for his company's kind of service as more companies move to the cloud. Obviously now with COVID, all these changes made it much more difficult for IT to connect their users to all the resources that they needed, and to us that's one of the most critical tasks that an IT organization has is making their team productive," he said.
He said their idea was to build an independent cloud directory platform that would connect people to really whatever it is they need and do that in a secure way while giving IT complete control over that access."
The product which includes a free tier for 10 users on 10 systems for an unlimited amount of time, has 100,000 users. Of those, Bhargava says that about 3000 are paying.
The company has 300 employees with plans to add 200-250 in the next year with a goal of adding 500 in the next couple of years. As he does that, Bhargava, who is South Asian, sees diversity and inclusion as an important component of the hiring process. In fact, the company tries to make sure it always has diverse candidates in the hiring pool.
Some of the things that we've tried to do is make sure that every role has some diversity candidates involved in the hiring process. That's something that our recruiting team is working on and making sure that we're having that conversation with every single hire," he said. He acknowledges that it's a work in progress, and a problem across the entire tech industry that he and his company continue to try and address.
Since the pandemic, the company, which is based in Colorado, has made the decision to be remote first and they will be hiring from across the country and across the world as they make these new hires, which could help contribute to a more diverse workforce over time.
With a $75 million investment, and having reached Series E, it's fair to ask if the company is thinking ahead to an IPO, but Bhargava didn't want to discuss that. We just raised this $75 million round. There's so much work to be done, so we're just looking forward to that right now," he said.
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