SkyKick Inc., a provider of cloud automation software for independent technology services providers, announced it has closed on a beefy $130 million financing round today that brings its total amount raised to more than $200 million.

The round was led by new investor Morgan Stanley Investment Management and saw the participation of existing investors Navin Thukkaram, Craig Nerenberg, Hawk Capital, Trebuchet Capital, Schechter Capital and other private technology investors.

SkyKick is one of a growing list of tech firms to have benefited immensely from the coronavirus pandemic and the shift to remote, cloud-based work. Its platform provides tools for independent technology service providers or ITSPs to automate cloud administration, support and security in the service of small and medium businesses.

The company’s newest product, Cloud Manager, provides help desk automation tools that help to secure, manage and solve customer’s issues with a range of software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service tools. It has proved to be popular, with demand growing by more than 1,000% in the past year off an undisclosed base as ITSPs looked to expand their cloud support services throughout the pandemic.

SkyKick also sells Cloud Backup for ITSPs to protect their customers against data loss, and Cloud Migration tools so they can enable easy adoption of their services. It claims more than 30,000 ITSPs are using its tools, including the likes of GoDaddy Inc., Vodafone Group Plc, Deutsche Telekom AG and Intermedia.net Inc.

SkyKick said it was able to attract such significant funding because investors appreciate the potential of the market for managed cloud services for small and medium-sized businesses, which is expected to grow to $116 billion by 2025 at an annual growth rate of 13.3%. Managed cloud services are required, the company says, because the adoption of SaaS applications and cloud software such as Microsoft 365, Google Apps and Zoom continues to explode.

SkyKick co-founders and co-Chief Executive Officers Todd Schwartz and Evan Richman said in a joint statement that their company aims to build the most powerful cloud automation platform for small and medium-sized businesses and the ITSPs that serve them. They said the new funding will be used to accelerate product innovation across the company’s entire product platform, with additional investments to be made in its sales, operations and customer success teams.

“This capital will be used to fuel innovation across our entire product platform, and to accelerate our team’s efforts to empower IT partners around the world,” Schwartz and Richman said.

The company last raised a $40 million in May 2018. It didn’t describe what stage that round was or what the current one is.

Image: SkyKick