Devolutions is launching Devolutions Ventures, a new corporate investment arm focused on companies across the IT and managed service provider ecosystem.
The initiative will target businesses in areas including secure access, network performance, automation, and other technologies that complement Devolutions’ existing platform. Unlike a traditional acquisition strategy, Devolutions plans to keep portfolio companies independent while providing access to its go-to-market, security, and community-building expertise.
For MSPs, the strategy could broaden the range of technologies connected to Devolutions’ ecosystem without requiring the company to build every capability internally. Devolutions plans to expand its network of investments and partnerships over the next 12 to 18 months.
Devolutions Ventures backs independent IT companies
The companies that Devolutions will invest in will continue to operate independently, but they will be able to tap into Devolutions’ global community of more than one million IT professionals across 140 countries.
“We’ve spent more than 15 years building technology for IT teams, so we understand both the problems they face and what it takes to build for this market,” said David Hervieux, CEO, Devolutions. “We’re approaching Devolutions Ventures as advisors, not simply investors. We want to back strong teams for the long term, give them room to keep building and use what we’ve learned to help them grow.”
They will also gain access to Devolutions experience in go-to-market, security, and community building.
Devolutions has plans to expand the network of investments and partnerships across the IT and MSP ecosystem over the next 12 to 18 months.
In an interview with Hervieux and Maxime Trottier, CRO, Devolutions, Hervieux described Devolutions Ventures as a way for the organization to expand beyond what it can build internally by supporting complementary technologies and connecting them into a broader ecosystem.
Devolutions brings GTM resources without absorbing companies
Further, Trottier emphasized that Devolutions Ventures is intended to build relationships among complementary businesses rather than absorb them into the company’s own go-to-market operation.
“We want to make sure that the businesses we partner with keep their independence, and so the idea here is not literally to grab them and go to market with these businesses into our own ecosystem,” said Trottier.
“We believe that there’s a way to do business with these partners, but also in respecting our own audience and our own user base. The strategy of Devolutions Ventures is more focusing on creating the ecosystem than leveraging our own user base for now,” Trottier added.
Ultimately, Devolutions is looking for companies that can stand on their own, while potentially complementing Devolutions’ existing technology and users. The Ventures model is distinguishable from a traditional VC approach in that it maintains longer-term relationships rather than a defined exit timeline.
“We are kind of a VC, but we are a corporate VC, which means that when you accept money from a VC, you know that you have an endgame in five-to-seven years. With us, it’s not the case,” said Hervieux.
Devolutions sees MSP opportunity beyond AI
Trottier frames Devolutions Ventures as an opportunity to help MSPs consolidate technology and tasks into a more connected environment rather than focusing exclusively on AI-specific products.
“The main goal here isn’t purely an AI game plan. It’s looking at how an MSP can work along an entire environment or an entire ecosystem?” Trottier explains. “By consolidating the vast majority of their tasks into – if not a single platform – a single environment. So the goal here is to make sure that we can provide the environment for MSPs.”
Trottier says MSPs represent more than half of Devolutions’ customers and focuses on giving those partners a centralized platform they can use to deliver Devolutions capabilities to their own customers.