Beamy raises 8 million euros to manage the explosion of SaaS in companies and set the framework for their IT decentralization
Beamy, a European pioneer in SaaS management for large enterprises, has raised more than €8 million in Series A funding. This funding round was led by funds Aglaé Ventures and ISAI, and business angels Nicolas Hernandez (360 Learning) and Erwan Keraudy (CybelAngel). The solution has already attracted notable customers including LVMH, Decathlon, Ora
Beamy, a Parisian scale-up featured in Station F’s “Future 40,” offers companies a unique solution that can detect and control the explosion of SaaS applications in their enterprise. The platform thus helps CIOs and other IT managers to control this parallel IT/digitization and to strengthen the technological autonomy of employees while maintaining corporate governance.
Being aware of the explosion of SaaS in the economy is crucial
Gone are the days when cumbersome and complex software packages were implemented and managed solely by IT departments. For years, SaaS has been exploding uncontrollably in large companies, creating an underground digitization.
On average, companies with more than 1,000 employees have several hundred different SaaS solutions in use, which translate into millions of dollars in annual costs. According to a recent study by KPMG, companies’ SaaS budgets will increase by 90% over the next 10 years, covering several thousand different solutions. A new IT paradigm is emerging.
However, this massive adoption of SaaS is largely out of the IT department’s control, resulting in a significant underestimation of the actual volume of SaaS applications already being used by the lines of business. As a result, these companies become highly vulnerable to the risks of cyberattacks: any uncontrolled SaaS application represents a potential security breach. After all, SaaS budgets, which make up an ever-growing share of corporate IT, are largely under-optimized. Many SaaS solutions cover the same applications and are therefore redundant, while others are underused or not used at all.
“Generally speaking, when we meet the CIO of a large company, they estimate that their organization uses 30 to 40 SaaS tools. However, when we start working together, our technology detects several hundred active SaaS solutions, often uncovering more than 75% of shadow IT,” explains Andréa Jacquemin, CEO and co-founder of Beamy.
The need to build a framework of technological autonomy for all professionals
The way large enterprises procure, implement, consume and manage SaaS software applications is changing. More than just an IT phenomenon, the explosion of SaaS has brought about a real change in how companies are organized: “The top-down vision of IT is over. We are witnessing a real decentralization of technological ownership and empowerment of business units that choose and implement their own solution,” explains Jacquemin.
Embracing this trend means that employees who find technology essential to fulfilling their activities can get involved and become the main players in their IT landscape. “The decentralization framework must be compatible with the granted technological autonomy. This is a story of balance. If we limit people’s ability to choose their applications and implement lengthy processes too much, they will continue to use the applications but will not go through the right channels with IT during implementation,” explained Jacquemin. “Without a solid decentralization structure, risks are significantly increased and budgets are not optimized. In any situation, you need to find the right balance of autonomy that works for your workforce, but maintaining the status quo on this issue is the worst solution.”
For this, Beamy has developed powerful scoring algorithms capable of recognizing all SaaS applications actually implemented in the company. Beamy is then able to follow the evolution of each application over time, provide employees with a catalog of all the applications implemented in the company, define an autonomy matrix according to the potential risks of future applications and through an app store of more than 50,000 Applications to navigate the market.
Beamy thus guarantees a global approach to SaaS governance, which is necessary to support large companies in the long term in structuring their IT decentralization and creating synergies between all stakeholders (CEOs, CIOs/other IT leaders and business teams).
Beamy wants to accelerate its international expansion
With an impressive end to 2021, this fundraising will allow the company to accelerate its international development (Beamy is already present on the international market in France and the UK), establish a global leadership position and strengthen customer relationships by supporting them in their longstanding aspirations to office. “We are convinced that SaaS issues are important issues for large companies, whether in France or internationally. With this fundraising from major investors such as Agaé Ventures and Isai, both known for their excellence in the technology sector, we aim to break into the international market,” explains Jacquemin.
To that end, Beamy plans to focus its investments on two main areas: recruitment, with plans to hire 40 more team members over the next 12 months; Product development with strengthening of detection technology and decentralization workflows to further streamline the collaboration between IT and business units in the implementation and management of new SaaS solutions.
“As investors, we know the SaaS model and the advantages that users and specialist departments can derive from it. For large companies, managing this often ‘overshadowed’ deployment is a real challenge,” says Jean-David Chambordeon from Isaï. “We were quickly won over by the vision of Beamy’s founders to identify, streamline, unify and enable this B2B SaaS stack within organizations. The excellent customer feedback we have been able to collect shows that Beamy is becoming the reference platform in this area.”
“Beamy offers a comprehensive view of SaaS tools and a governance platform with a real return on investment,” said Léa Verdillon of Aglaé Ventures. “The great feedback we received from customers convinced us that Andréa and Edouard form the right team to develop Beamy. The international ambition that drives them is in perfect harmony with the rapidly growing market, especially in the United States, which is one of our investment areas.”
https://techround.co.uk/news/beamy-raises-8-million-euros-to-govern-the-explosion-of-saas-in-companies-and-build-the-framework-for-their-it-decentralisation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=beamy-raises-8-million-euros-to-govern-the-explosion-of-saas-in-companies-and-build-the-framework-for-their-it-decentralisation Beamy raises 8 million euros to manage the explosion of SaaS in companies and set the framework for their IT decentralization
