Few IT service providers have growth plans that are strong enough to attract venture capital or angel investor dollars. Cloud Technology Partners, a professional services firm that's growing 100 percent annually and hiring aggressively, is bucking that trend.
Indeed, the company in June raised $3.5 million in venture capital -- bringing total funding to $17.4 million. True believers include Pritzker Group Venture Capital and Oak Investment Partners.
Cloud Technology Partners transitions customers to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform, among others. The company has been involved in more than 200 cloud projects worldwide. The twist: Instead of just helping CIOs with their cloud migrations, CTP also helps ISVs (independent software vendors) to transition from on-premises servers and/or client-server systems to cloud environments.
This Sounds Familiar
No doubt, customer demand for cloud migration services is strong. IT service providers have ridden similar waves before -- with mixed results of the long haul. During the web integrator craze of the late 1990s, companies like iXL, MarchFirst, Sapient, Scient, Razorfish and Viant raised venture capital and often went public. But the dot-com implosion crippled many of those companies.
Fast forward to today, and Cloud Technology Partners will need to make sure it has a healthy mix of profitable, enterprise-class customers that will keep paying their bills if/when the long-expected tech market correction arrives.
And therein resides a potential Cloud Technology Partners strength. The company's founders previously led Cambridge Technology Partners -- an IT consulting firm that ultimately navigated multiple IT waves and several ownership changes. That experience could serve Cloud Technology Partners well as the next wave of market shifts arrive.
