Cloud Sherpas, the company that adds value to Google Apps, received a round of funding which could bolster their efforts to push Google Apps further into the enterprise market. This funding round of $1.6 million, in Series A-1 financing, was led by Syncarpha Capital, Vento Security Holdings and Hallett Capital, the investment vehicle of Cloud Sherpas’ CEO, Jon Hallett. Cloud Sherpas announced Series A funding of around $1M in May 2010. The company has now raised close to $3M in funding.
Who are Cloud Sherpas?
Cloud Sherpas are one of the largest Google Apps Authorized Resellers and they are one of the 50 partners who were part of the Google Apps Marketplace when it started. Their free value added solutions include
- End-user Directory: Users see a fully-browseable directory, including User Profiles, Shared Contacts and Groups. Users can self-manage their own profile and copy Directory contacts into My Contacts
- Directory Manager: Admins can easily manage User Profiles and Shared Contacts, editing important fields like phone number, job title, and even locked fields like account username. Contacts can be managed individually or in bulk via Google Docs spreadsheets
- User Settings: Admins can specify Gmail settings for individual users or groups. This powerful feature is helpful for configuring Email Signatures, Send Mail As, Time Zone, and many other settings
- Directory Bot: End-users can now access the corporate directory from any Google Talk chat client, including mobile devices where access to the directory is often limited
They also offer a premium feature along with the above said free features for users who buy Google Apps Premium Edition through them.
Access Control: Admins can now delegate access to specific modules of SherpaTools to users within your organization that don’t have admin credentials. This allows your Help Desk personnel to reset passwords and change usernames without Google Apps admin privileges
Along with these services, they also offer tools to bulk upload to Google Sites and Offline Sync. The interesting part about their offerings is that they tap into Google App Engine for their services. This not only offer a better user experience (less latency as Google Apps and Cloud Sherpas’ services share Google’s own infrastructure) but also the low (well, mostly free) cost services.
Conclusion
From day one, I am pumped about Google Apps Marketplace and services like the ones offered by Cloud Sherpas not only entice SMB who are more likely to look for free or low cost tools but also mid market enterprises. Just a few years back, SMBs could not have imagined having an enterprise level IT for zero or low overheads. But services like Google Apps and powerful add-ons like Cloud Sherpas tools makes it easy for SMBs to acquire powerful IT services which, in turn, helps their business with agility.
Related articles
- Cloud Sherpas raises $1.6M to sell Google apps to companies (venturebeat.com)
- Cloud Sherpas Raises $1.6M to Sell Google Apps to Companies (nytimes.com)
- Cloud Sherpas Raises Another $1.6 Million To Migrate Businesses To Google Apps (techcrunch.com)
- Google App integrator Cloud Sherpas raises capital (zdnet.com)
- Cloud Sherpas nabs funds for Google Apps tools, services (infoworld.com)
- Cloud Sherpas Nabs Funds for Google Apps Tools, Services (pcworld.com)
- Cloud Sherpas SherpaTools Simplifies Administering Google Apps (informationweek.com)
