Cloud directory-as-a-service provider JumpCloud Inc. is getting some serious traction, announcing a $159 million late-stage round of funding today that follows a $100 million raise in January.

The Series F round was led by Sapphire Ventures and saw participation from Owl Rock, Whale Rock Capital, Sands Capital, and Endeavor Catalyst. Existing investors General Atlantic, BlackRock, and H.I.G. Growth Partners also took part in the round, which brings JumpCloud’s valuation up to $2.56 billion.

JumpCloud aims to simplify directory management for companies that have multiple user directories or that don’t want to go to the trouble of installing their own. Its directory provides core identity and access control services, multifactor authentication, single sign-on and integration with other popular directories such as Microsoft Corp.’s Active Directory and the neutral Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.

The company sees its service as a modern replacement for Microsoft Corp.’s Active Directory service. JumpCloud says it has some significant advantages, claiming that Active Directory was designed and built for an on-premises world dominated by Windows-centric computing environments.

That makes it unsuitable in a modern era where information technology resources are increasingly cloud-based. JumpCloud also competes with cloud access security brokers and federated identity management platforms.

JumpCloud reckons it has grown considerably since the COVID-19 pandemic, as organizations across the world have sought a better way to manage thousands of remote workers. It provides a single solution that supports heterogeneous applications, devices and security needs.

The alternative, JumpCloud says, is to use legacy services such as Active Directory and extend them with multiple standalone tools for SSO, MFA and device management, or skip directory management entirely and work with dozens of individual systems to connect employees to resources. Neither is ideal.

JumpCloud co-founder and Chief Executive Rajat Bhargava said IT teams have a strategic responsibility to ensure that work gets done securely and efficiently, no matter where workers are located.

“The pandemic accelerated their need for an infrastructure platform that is not limited by legacy domain-based approaches, or requires multiple point solutions,” he said. “JumpCloud reimagined the directory with a comprehensive, modern platform that gives IT admins an easier path to adopt zero-trust security models for more granular access control, with a user-friendly experience.”

The proof is in the pudding, and JumpCloud offers some impressive numbers, saying it now counts almost 5,000 customers across 100 countries, 1,300 managed software provider partners and a 149% net revenue retention rate.

One customer the company cited is the new and used car dealer Cars.com LLC. “JumpCloud has helped us put together all of the identity and device management pieces in a much needed way during the pandemic,” said Kyle McKenna, manager of enterprise technology at Cars.com. “As our company grows, the scalable JumpCloud platform allows us to more easily manage all of our devices and users, which saves us time and resources.”

During the last year JumpCloud has beefed up the capabilities of its platform quite significantly, adding a premium feature called Directory Insights that gives system administrators and security staff a centralized view of user activity around access to corporate resources. Other additions include JumpCloud Protect, a mobile push MFA app that’s able to verify user’s identities through single-touch verification available on iOS and Android devices, and Zero Touch Enrollment for Macs, expanding its device management capabilities.

Casber Wang, vice president at Sapphire Ventures, said JumpCloud has established itself as the preferred platform for the IT administrator community by successfully unifying access to identity, device and cloud infrastructure resources into a single secure platform.

Image: JumpCloud