Nerdio nabs $500M to power virtual desktops on Azure

Nerdio, a platform designed to simplify how companies deploy and manage Microsoft cloud technologies, has raised $500 million in a Series C round of funding.

The Chicago-based startup says its valuation has now quadrupled since its Series B round two years ago, and is now firmly in unicorn territory — though the company wouldn’t reveal a specific valuation.

“We are not disclosing the specific valuation, but it is north of $1 billion,” Nerdio chief revenue officer Joseph Landes told TechCrunch over email.

Nerdio spun out of an “IT-as-a-service” company called Adar back in 2020, with Adar falling under private equity ownership and Nerdio forging a path as a dedicated cloud management service provider for customers that include PayPal, Sony, and Comcast.

Nerdio targets companies looking to optimize their cloud infrastructure deployments and costs. With Nerdio Manager for Enterprise, the company helps businesses manage Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows applications across their workforce. It automates many of the tasks related to cloud infrastructure and virtual desktop management, such as user-provisioning, application deployment, as well as providing cost-optimization features like auto-scaling resources to match demand.

Virtual desktops, for the uninitiated, are computer environments that run on remote servers instead of physical computers, allowing users to access all their apps, files, and configurations on any device via the internet. Nerdio touts a more modern cloud-native approach to traditional legacy players such as Citrix, which started out before the cloud computing revolution had taken off.

This is particularly pertinent at a time when millions of people have embraced remote and hybrid working environments, as they can securely access all their work from wherever they are.

“Managing cloud environments is complex and costly — it typically requires a lot of specialized technical expertise and a mix of costly, siloed tools,” Landes said. “Nerdio provides a single, comprehensive platform that allows organizations to manage their Microsoft cloud environments without the need for extra skills, tools, or workflows.”

Prior to now, Nerdio had raised an $8 million Series A round in 2020, followed by a $117 million Series B tranche three years later. For its latest $500 million cash injection, Nerdio has ushered in U.S. growth equity firm General Atlantic alongside Lead Edge Capital and Stepstone who have procured a minority stake in the company.

Nerdio wouldn’t confirm what the ownership percentages are across its swathe of investors, but it said that the founders “retain a significant stake in the company.”

Nerdio says that it plans to use its investment to enhance its product lineup across key Microsoft services including Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, and Microsoft 365. The company also says that it plans to bolster its headcount which currently sits at 300 employees.

“We plan to grow that number significantly as we scale our global presence and build customer support and engineering teams,” Landes said.