CloudWyze Inc. announced Thursday that it has raised more than $1 million in growth capital.
The round was oversubscribed, indicating “substantial appetite” for CloudWyze’s approach to solving critical IT issues for small and medium-size businesses, Shaun Olsen, the company’s CEO, said in a news release.
Olsen spearheaded the capital raise; the round was led by current investor Tobin Geatz and by Yousry Sayed, CEO of Wilmington’s Quality Chemical Laboratories, according to the release. Sayed’s company is a CloudWyze customer.
The capital will be used for expansion of customer offerings and network coverage, according to the release.
The company's first funding round launched CloudWyze in 2012, Olsen said in a telephone conversation Thursday afternoon.
Since its formation, CloudWyze has focused on businesses that were not being served adequately by cable and phone companies, the release stated, adding that the company has seen more than 100 percent annual growth.
Sayed said that CloudWyze services enabled his company to grow.
"Two years ago Quality Chemical Laboratories (QCL) was a rapidly growing company that needed an enterprise upgrade to our IT systems. QCL evaluated options and decided that CloudWyze can help our business grow with superior IT management conveniently located in Wilmington NC," Sayed wrote in an email.
"Since then, QCL has doubled its operational footprint to 52,000 square feet and its staff to about 130 employees. CloudWyze continues to provide smart technology management support and custom IT applications enabling QCL to better serve its pharmaceutical industry customers with high quality science and problem-solving capabilities with secure data and communications. CloudWyze plays an important role in our continued growth and we will continue to work with CloudWyze in the future," he wrote.
CloudWyze becomes its customers' "remote, virtual IT staff," Olsen said in the release, "saving them thousands of dollars while providing them with the latest-generation systems without the need and expense of constant upgrades.”
“Our business model helps small and medium-size businesses leverage the incredible connectivity and flexibility that previously was only available to Fortune 1000 customers through a broad spectrum offering of cloud-based services," he added. "Too many providers have ignored rapidly growing, sophisticated markets like Wilmington. It was a niche that was begging to be filled.”
The majority of CloudWyze customers have between 5 and 50 employees, although several are considerably larger, Olsen said in the Thursday interview.
CloudWyze provides business-grade internet, IT outsource transitioning, IT project management, IT process management, infrastructure redesign and business process management through technology and support, according to the release. Olsen said that the company's cloud services support is "huge."
