Apple is known for its near seamless software and hardware integration, and of course, it’s robust ecosystem. The Cupertino-based company’s laptops and other devices are rapidly gaining adoption in the enterprise space as well. Apple device management is a lucrative space wherein the California-based scaleup Kandji is making notable headway. The company has now secured £74 million in its series C funding round.
Expansion, innovation and a notable valuation
The latest funding for Kandji was led by Tiger Global with participation from Definition, Frontline Ventures. Company’s existing investors First Round Capital, Greycroft, Felicis Ventures, The Spruce House Partnership, B Capital Group, SVB Capital, and Okta Ventures participated as well. In a conversation with UKTN, the company’s CEO and co-founder Adam Pettit reveals more on how the funds will be utilised.
Petit says investing in their R&D will be a top priority for the company. “We are going to continue working hand-in-hand with our customers to solve the needs of the most sophisticated enterprises. This means investing heavily in R&D to extend our compelling positions in device management and security, in order to address broader client needs connected to the Apple device lifecycle,” He says.
Furthermore, Kandji will be expanding its presence across Europe by opening a regional headquarters in London, hiring a General Manager for EMEA, and opening a new European data center in Frankfurt. The scaleup is also planning on building a local team of about 50 employees. Currently, it hires 230 people globally and expects to be at 250 headcount by the end of this year.
This was the third funding round for the company and its valuation now stands at £593 million post funding.
Next generation device management
Kandji offers an easy way to manage Apple devices for an enterprise. Petit quotes Frost & Sullivan for stating that the Apple device management (MDM) market grows at 17.8 percent CAGR and is estimated to be worth $23 billion by 2024. The company’s offering is a device management and security platform that’s intended to help a company’s IT team easily manage their complete portfolio of Apple devices centrally. This includes Macs, iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs.
“Employee use of Apple devices is on the rise but the move to remote and hybrid work means that IT teams must be able to add new team members, maintain security settings, deploy software, and keep all systems up-to-date without ever touching these devices,” Petit remarks. “Kandji addresses this and saves IT teams countless hours of manual and repetitive work by enabling them to effectively manage and protect their employees’ devices entirely remotely,” he adds.
With work from home, it makes sense to have a robust system in place for Apple devices as well. Kandji recently unveiled two new features for its consumers called Kandji Liftoff and Kandji Passport. The former can be used to quickly setup an Apple device for enterprise use as it automatically loads up the required apps, settings and security controls. Kandji Passport, on the other hand, is an authentication product, which is touted to deliver a one-password sign-in experience for all users.
In our conversation with Petit, we also learned that the company is focussed solely on Apple devices. There’s no word on whether Kandji will foray into Windows device management in the future.
The pandemic’s push
The pandemic either pushed or slumped businesses, based on how they were needed by companies and the public. Kandji witnessed a 700% increase in their year-over-year revenues. “The reason for this is the demand for Apple devices in enterprise is growing, and 70% of companies have more than doubled the number of remote or hybrid workers in the past two years,” Petit notes.
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