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Venture Capital News: Cloud Sherpas Nets $40M Series B

2012-12-20
ATLANTA, GA, Cloud Sherpas has completed a $40 million Series B capital raise that will help the company execute its aggressive international growth plans for 2013.
Cloud Sherpas has completed a $40 million Series B capital raise that will help the company execute its aggressive international growth plans for 2013 and beyond. Existing Series A investors Columbia Capital and Delta-V Capital are joined in the new round by Greenspring Associates, a global venture capital firm with over $2.2 billion in committed capital, and Queensland Investment Corporation, one of the largest institutional investment managers in Australia.

Cloud Sherpas is one of the fastest-growing, most successful cloud services brokerages (CSB). With over 3,000 customers, the firm has more than doubled in size organically every year since inception and projects 2013 revenues north of $100 million. It has built strong and deep partnerships with two of the world's most prominent cloud providers, Google and salesforce.com. Cloud Sherpas has over 350 employees in eight offices on three continents including a Global Delivery Center in the Philippines, and has migrated more workers to the cloud than any other CSB.

Cloud Sherpas has also made a name for itself as an industry consolidator. Since 2007, the firm has merged with or acquired eight cloud consultancies. The latest round of financing will allow Cloud Sherpas to continue its organic growth investments and execute a number of transactions in its M&A pipeline, including one which Cloud Sherpas completed today.

Cloud Sherpas' decision to raise additional capital at this time is in response to accelerating adoption of cloud technology by enterprises and the opportunity to lead the market transition as a CSB. The new funds will allow Cloud Sherpas to better serve existing and prospective customers who are rapidly increasing their use of cloud services and are anxious to move off legacy on-premise systems. The new capital will also be used by Cloud Sherpas to grow its presence in key geographic regions, extend partnerships with Google and salesforce.com, and expand into emerging technology categories.

"Our approach is all about finding quality companies with significant upside, and helping them reach their full potential," said Ashton Newhall, a co-founder at Greenspring Associates. "Given its first mover advantage, unbelievable success to date and massive greenfield opportunity, Cloud Sherpas fits our model perfectly. We believe there is a dramatic under supply of companies focused on providing services to the segment of the market. Further, Cloud Sherpas' management is uniquely qualified to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity."

"This fundraise advances our mission to help our clients generate maximum return on their investments in strategic cloud initiatives," said Chris Arroyo, CFO at Cloud Sherpas. "Investor response to our Series B was overwhelming and the round was over-subscribed, further validating our market leadership and future potential. The process has exceeded our expectations and we are absolutely bullish on the future of Cloud Sherpas."

"We're entering the next phase in the evolution of enterprise cloud services," said David Northington, CEO at Cloud Sherpas. "Cloud is everywhere now, and our clients want to know how they can leverage it to innovate, gain market share, stay more connected with customers, and ultimately stay one step ahead of the competition. Cloud applications are implemented with more flexibility and with less risk, and allow for more focus on business and process innovation. Cloud Sherpas is helping businesses around the globe aggregate multiple cloud services, integrate them with in-house apps, and customize them to meet their unique needs. This new investment will allow us to help our clients realize all that is possible with the cloud."

About Cloud Sherpas
Cloud Sherpas, the Google Enterprise 2011 Partner of the Year and a Platinum salesforce.com Partner, is one of the world's leading cloud services brokerages. Since 2007, the company has helped over 3,000 customers adopt, manage and enhance cloud solutions from Google, salesforce.com and other leading cloud vendors. Whether working with a global retailer to help them make their business more connected and collaborative with Google Apps or helping a financial services firm deploy Sales Cloud and Service Cloud to better manage their customer relationships, Cloud Sherpas has the experience and expertise to help organizations leverage the cloud and respond with agility to the rapid consumerization of IT. Cloud Sherpas has offices in Atlanta, Brisbane, Chicago, Manila, New York, San Francisco, San Diego, Sydney, Tokyo and Wellington. For more information visit www.cloudsherpas.com.

About Greenspring Associates
Established in 2000, as a global technology focused venture capital firm, Greenspring Associates currently manages both a dedicated late stage direct investment platform as well as a globally diversified fund of funds platform. Since inception, the Firm has invested in over 55 portfolio companies alongside of its leading venture capital and growth equity managers both in the United States and Europe. Through the Firm's value-added investment approach, it primarily invests across the information technology and communications sectors, as well as healthcare and energy-related technologies. The Firm currently manages over $2.2 billion in committed capital for a diverse group of pension plans, insurance companies, foundations, endowments and family offices in North America, Europe, Middle East, Australia and Asia.

About QIC Private Equity
QIC Global Private Equity (QIC GPE) is a business unit of QIC Limited (QIC) and acts as an in-house private equity team, managing $3 billion (as at 30 June 2012) for institutional investors including superannuation, pension and sovereign wealth funds. Operating with a strong principal investment mindset and uncompromising fiduciary standards, QIC GPE develop, implement and adapt private equity solutions that seek to deliver higher performance over time. Located in Brisbane, Sydney, San Francisco and Copenhagen the team comprises nine investment professionals plus extensive support staff. QIC is one of the largest institutional investment managers in Australia, with $67.8 billion in funds under management as at 30 September 2012. More info www.qic.com.
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