Venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners has invested $22 million in SaaS Alerts, a cybersecurity company that promotes cloud application security software to MSPs. The deal's valuation was not disclosed.
SaaS Alerts allows MSPs to monitor and protect end-customers that run Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Dropbox and other SaaS applications.
The software offers unified, real-time monitoring to help MSPs “protect against data theft, data-at-risk and bad actors while integrating with the most popular SaaS Applications and MSP tools,” the company states.
SaaS Alerts: MSP Partner Focus, Growth, Rivals
SaaS Alerts, founded in 2020, has been growing rapidly. As of early August 2022, SaaS Alerts supported more than 500 MSPs to protect more than 375,000 end-user accounts, ChannelE2E reported.
SaaS Alerts CEO Jim Lippie previously held executive-level posts at Kaseya and also served as CEO of Thrive, the next-gen MSP.
Key SaaS Alerts rivals include Augmentt, a startup led by CEO Derik Belair and Chairman Gavin Garbutt — two N-able veterans who helped to pioneer the MSP software market. Augmentt in August 2022 expanded its platform to include SaaS Security Alerting for Microsoft 365.
Generally speaking, SaaS Alerts and Augmentt are the first SaaS application security startups focused entirely on MSPs.
Meanwhile, Insight Partners is very familiar with the SaaS security and MSP software sectors. Indeed, Insight Partners also backs:
- Adaptive Shield (SaaS security posture management);
- Coreview (Microsoft 365 management);
- DoControl (a SaaS data security startup); and
- Kaseya -- the new parent of Datto.
Additional Insight Partners investments involve data protection firms such as OwnBackup, Rewind and Veeam.
Elsewhere, multiple enterprise-focused startups and VC firms have jumped into the SaaS application security market. Examples include AppOmni, Canonic Security, Grip Security and Torii.
Big MSPs and MSSPs are also taking note of the market. For instance, Atos -- a global IT consulting firm and Top 250 MSSP -- this week announced a Microsoft 365 information security initiative.
Insight Partners Invests In SaaS Alerts: Executive Perspectives
In a prepared statement about the Insight Partners investment, SaaS Alerts CEO Jim Lippie said:
“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Insight Partners and we see their investment in SaaS Alerts as a monumental endorsement for what we have built and what we intend to build as we collaborate going forward. I’m very proud of our team for reaching this milestone and look forward to working with Insight to continue to build value for our MSP partners and stakeholders.”
Added Philine Huizing, principal at Insight Partners:
"SaaS applications have become essential for businesses of every size and MSPs need the ability to better protect those applications on behalf of their customers. SaaS Alerts has pioneered SaaS security for MSPs and has a clear vision for how detecting and correlating abnormal user behavior can greatly impact the MSP industry. We’re excited to partner with SaaS Alerts as the company scales to address this unique opportunity."
What's next for SaaS Alerts? The company will be on hand for MSSP Alert Live 2022 (September 19-21, Washington, D.C.). We'll be sure to ask Jim Lippie for more perspectives on the deal at that time.
Disclosure: MSSP Alert Editorial Director Joe Panettieri is a member of Channel Angels, a network of angel investors focused on the SMB sector. Channel Angels invested in SaaS Alerts in 2021.
