Looks like another exit for an Israel-based startup — this one straddling the worlds of cloud services and hardware control. Soluto, a service that lets users manage PCs and other connected devices remotely, has been acquired by Asurion, a company that offers device insurance services. The news is being reported as a work in progress by TheMarker Calcalist. Globes, meanwhile, is reporting this as a done deal. And we have confirmed the sale has been closed by two separate sources. We’re hearing reports of up to $130 million, specifically between $100 million and $130 million.
Soluto — which first had its debut at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010 in the Startup Battlefield; it won — started out life as a cloud-based platform that let ordinary people help each other with managing their own and other people’s devices. Tomer Dvir, the CEO and co-founder, has told me that one of the driving ideas behind creating the service was to help his mother with her computer when he was not near her. “I can help her set up and run Skype, Spotify, whatever,” he said. Pretty hip mom, I’d say.
That initial consumer and specific PC focus helped the company with getting an early critical mass for its service. Today the company has clocked more than 3 million downloads of its product, and over 15 million “actions” carried out through its platform.
More recently the company has expanded to include other connected devices beyond PCs such as smartphones and tablets; and it has expanded into enterprise services — such as its SMB-focused products, launched in April of this year.
This has signalled a more formal approach to the kinds of device management you tend to associate with business services — mobile device management; hardware inventory; patch management; boot shortener; remote access, and so on. It has still continued to keep its focus on simplicity — taking a cue from the wider consumerization trend that has been so strong in the enterprise sector. “Ready to enjoy being the IT guy?” the site’s homepage asks visitors.
You can see where a deal with Asurion makes a lot of sense.
The company, based out of Kansas City, Missouri, partners with carriers like Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Clear to resell its services to consumers. Those services include physical replacement of broken devices — consumers can file and track claims — but there are also a suite of services that are software-based, such as the ability to locate lost devices and back up content. Soluto will help Asurion extend and improve the latter part of the service, perhaps as a way also to offset some of the insurance risk around losing and replacing faulty or broken handsets.
More to come.
via TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/KihzFBp6p2k/
0 comments:
Post a Comment