Kandji, an Apple system administration platform for enterprises, raises $100M

Kandji

Picture Credit score: Kandji

Kandji, an Apple system administration platform for enterprises, has raised $100 million in a sequence C spherical of funding led by Tiger World. The corporate is now valued at $800 million.

Whereas Apple is properly on its method to turning into a $3 trillion enterprise, the Cupertino firm has spawned a gargantuan ecosystem of entrepreneurs, from indie builders by means of to billion-dollar upstarts. Builders constructing on prime of Apple’s platforms reportedly grew their complete App Retailer billings and gross sales by 24% in 2020, rising to $643 billion. On the enterprise facet in the meantime, Jamf shone a highlight on the burgeoning Apple system administration house when it hit the general public markets final 12 months, happening to turn out to be a $4 billion firm.

It’s the latter of those areas — massive companies that wish to handle and deploy their Apple units at scale — that Kandji has firmly in its line of sight. That is significantly essential at a time when numerous corporations have been pressured to embrace distant or hybrid working because of the world pandemic, with IT departments in search of new instruments to configure their employees’ laptops, smartphones, and tablets from afar.

Distant management

Based in 2018, Kandji helps companies equivalent to Rackspace, Belkin, and DigiCert handle and safe all their Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs. The Kandji platform contains auto-enroll configuration in order that new staff can use their units out-the-box, with pre-configured e mail and community accounts and all of the apps they want for his or her particular function and site.

Firms might need totally different system necessities relying on the division or function that the worker works in. That is the place its blueprints function enters the fray, permitting admins to allocate particular configurations to every new system — this might imply, for instance, totally different display screen lock timeouts or passcode insurance policies relying on the place a tool might be used and for what function they’ll be utilizing it.

At its core, Kandji is all about automating lots of the time-consuming guide processes that IT groups will sometimes have to interact in. The platform ships with some 150 pre-built automations that admins can toggle on and off.

Elsewhere, Kandji additionally presents what it calls Auto Apps, which embrace the likes of 1Password, Field, Zoom, Slack, and GitHub, serving as a library of pre-packaged functions that Kandji hosts and mechanically patches. Admins can resolve whether or not updates are enforced mechanically.

Kandji presents a bunch of pre-built integrations, together with with id and entry administration (IAM) suppliers equivalent to Okta; Oomnitza for asset administration; Slack for alerts and notifications; and Vanta for compliance reporting. The corporate additionally gives an API that corporations can use to tug knowledge from another methods.

Kandji had beforehand raised round $88 million, the majority of which arrived through two funding rounds over the previous 13 months. With one other $100 million within the financial institution — which incorporates investments from Greycroft, Felicis Ventures, Okta Ventures, Definition Capital, Frontline Ventures, First Spherical Capital, The Spruce Home Partnership, and B Capital Group — the San Diego-based firm is well-financed to bolster its European growth plans, which incorporates opening a brand new workplace in London.

An Apple a day

Whereas Home windows undoubtedly nonetheless guidelines the roost when it comes to enterprise (and shopper) market share, Macs are seemingly on the up. Current knowledge from IDC famous that MacOS units now represent round 23% of laptop computer / desktop units in U.S. enterprises (1,000+ staff), representing a six proportion level improve on 2019. Furthermore, iPhones make up practically half of all smartphones in these identical companies, and iPads are the vast majority of tablets.

Based on Kandji founder and CEO Adam Pettit, there are a number of components driving this demand — however principally it boils right down to conserving employees comfortable and making certain corporations can preserve their finest staff in an more and more aggressive panorama.

“Apple adoption throughout the enterprise is boosted by staff, who — when given the selection of computing platforms — have a tendency to decide on Apple,” Pettit advised VentureBeat. “Moreover, dealing with the continuing ‘nice resignation,’ companies have acknowledged that giving staff their desire within the tech they use at work can preserve their staff happier and retain expertise. IT groups are additionally bullish on Apple units, that are inherently safe and have highly effective administration capabilities inbuilt.”

This “bottom-up” development would possibly go a way towards explaining why corporations could also be extra inclined to decide on Apple than they had been maybe a number of years in the past, however there may be extra to it than that — in addition they need to really feel assured that they’ll handle 1000’s of units in an more and more distributed workforce. This mix is what allows corporations equivalent to Jamf and Kandji to flourish.

Citing knowledge from Kandji’s personal current survey, 56% of IT leaders are apparently extra assured in with the ability to remotely handle Apple units right now than they had been two years in the past, in comparison with simply 37% for Home windows. Whereas all these figures will range by trade, firm measurement, and site (and likewise who’s conducting the survey), it’s clear that there’s greater than sufficient demand for Apple within the enterprise for Kandji and its ilk.

Pettit mentioned that whereas the corporate doesn’t disclose detailed buyer deployment knowledge, it does have greater than 1,000 paying clients, with its pricing beginning at $400 per 30 days for a 100-device deployment and going all the best way as much as $9,000 for 3,000 units.

“With our minimal pricing tier beginning at 100 units, most of our progress is coming from mid-to-large organizations,” he mentioned.

It’s additionally price noting that enterprise on the lower-priced plans pays further to unlock API entry and achieve entry to Passport, a not too long ago launched authentication product that enables customers to to make use of a single password for the Mac computer systems and their group’s single sign-on (SSO) supplier. These further options are included within the month-to-month value as their system deployment necessities improve.

A hybrid world

The reality of the matter is, corporations which are eager to appease their employees will seemingly need to undertake a hybrid method — not everybody needs to make use of Apple units, and never each firm can afford to dole out Apple units to everybody. So how does Kandji cater to those sorts of environments? And is it seeking to broaden its horizons to assist different {hardware}? Lengthy story brief, most likely not any time quickly.

“What we’ve noticed out there is that cross-platform merchandise wrestle to prioritize the administration and configuration capabilities of Apple units — there are specifics in regards to the Apple working methods and administration protocols that require a depth of information and focus,” Pettit defined. “We imagine that making a best-in-class administration expertise for Apple units will enhance the arrogance in these units amongst IT groups and end-users alike, and assist speed up the adoption of Apple within the enterprise.”