Nerdio Inc., a startup that helps companies manage virtual desktop environments deployed on Microsoft Azure, has raised $500 million in fresh funding.

The software maker announced the Series C investment today. General Atlantic led the round with participation from Lead Edge Capital and StepStone. Nerdio is now valued at more than $1 billion, about four times what it was worth two years ago.

Virtual desktops are cloud-hosted Windows machines that a company provides to its employees. Because there’s no hardware to manage, virtual desktops can be easier to maintain than a physical PC. Additionally, hackers can’t gain access to company data by stealing an employee device, which improves security.

Chicago-based Nerdio provides a platform for managing virtual desktops hosted on Azure. The software is used by workers across 15,000 organizations, up from 5,000 at the time of the company’s previous funding round in 2022. Nerdio counts Comcast Corp., PayPal Holdings Inc. and other large enterprises among its customers.

The company’s platform can be downloaded on a self-service basis through the Azure Marketplace. According to Nerdio, that avoids the lengthy procurement process often involved in enterprise software purchases. The platform runs directly in customers’ cloud environments, which improves security by removing the need to move data to external infrastructure.

Nerdio’s platform integrates with the two virtual desktop services built into Azure: AVD, or Azure Virtual Desktop, and Windows 365. AVD provides a broader set of configuration options along with a consumption-based pricing model. Windows 365, in turn, offers fixed per-user subscription pricing.

One of the tasks that Nerdio promises to ease is the process of creating new virtual desktops. According to the company, the initial setup can require weeks of work in some cases. Its platform provides a setup wizard that speeds up the process by up to 80%.

Once a company’s virtual machines are online, administrators can use Nerdio to manage day-to-day maintenance. The platform provides tools that ease the task of detecting desktop performance issues. Administrators can log into a virtual desktop for troubleshooting purposes, as well as sign out accounts that exhibit potentially malicious behavior.

A built-in autoscaling tool promises to help reduce customers’ infrastructure usage. According to Nerdio, the feature can automatically adjust the amount of hardware assigned to a virtual Azure environment based on user demand. The company estimates its software can help customers lower compute and storage costs by up to 80%.

Today’s funding announcement follows a year in which Nerdio claims to have grown its annual recurring revenue by more than 85%. Moreover, it did so while maintaining profitability. The company will use the capital to hire more engineers and develop new features for its platform.

Image: Nerdio