Virtual desktop startup lands $6M plugin

dizzion-logoA virtual desktop startup has booted up $6.4 million as it plans to more than double its headcount this year.

Workers can use downtown-based Dizzion to access company documents and software from nearly any device. Cofounder and CEO Steve Prather said the biggest single chunk of funding from this round will go to new hires.

“It’s about 40 percent in the human capital side,” he said, including seven current openings for sales and marketing positions as well as engineers. Prather said Dizzion is on pace to more than double its employees in 2016 and is forecasting the same for 2017.

Dizzion has 30 full-time employees. The startup will open a brick-and-mortar office in San Antonio by January, Prather said, and is hoping to hire people with military experience from nearby bases.

Since Dizzion’s customers work in the health care, financial services, insurance and outsourced business services industries, the company has spent the past months preparing to meet security and compliance standards intended to protect sensitive data like credit card numbers or health care records.

Prather said the company expects to pass a third-party audit of their system some time in October.

CEO Steve Prather

CEO Steve Prather

The average customer purchases Dizzion for about 200 desktops, Prather said, although some accounts are as large as 4,000 desktops.

Prather said businesses of that size, unlike Fortune 500 companies that buy remote desktop systems from giants like Hewlett-Packard and IBM, are an untapped market that would otherwise build a remote desktop service in-house.

“More often than not, the number one competitor is do-it-yourself,” he said.

Dizzion runs on most laptops, desktops, smartphones (with the exception of Blackberry devices) and tablets. Prather said that feature is important to businesses with temporary contractors or stay-at-home workers, since new hires can use a device they already own rather than one at the employer’s expense.

Dizzion charges for each desktop, which Prather said can be as low as $40 and has high as $75 a month depending on factors including which software applications and which compliance standards a customer needs.

Dizzion is looking to expand how many resellers and other distributors sell the startup’s service. Denver-based Hosting.com and ViaWest, for example, purchase Dizzion wholesale and resell it to customers as part of their bundle of products. (Prather and other company co-founders worked at ViaWest prior to founding Dizzion in 2011.) Dizzion also pays commissions to businesses that refer customers.

The startup does not disclose financial figures, but Prather said Dizzion has exceeded 100 percent year-over-year revenue growth for the past three years.

Dizzion, which has an office at 600 17th St., is also using this round of funding to update hardware infrastructure, Prather said.

dizzion-logoA virtual desktop startup has booted up $6.4 million as it plans to more than double its headcount this year.

Workers can use downtown-based Dizzion to access company documents and software from nearly any device. Cofounder and CEO Steve Prather said the biggest single chunk of funding from this round will go to new hires.

“It’s about 40 percent in the human capital side,” he said, including seven current openings for sales and marketing positions as well as engineers. Prather said Dizzion is on pace to more than double its employees in 2016 and is forecasting the same for 2017.

Dizzion has 30 full-time employees. The startup will open a brick-and-mortar office in San Antonio by January, Prather said, and is hoping to hire people with military experience from nearby bases.

Since Dizzion’s customers work in the health care, financial services, insurance and outsourced business services industries, the company has spent the past months preparing to meet security and compliance standards intended to protect sensitive data like credit card numbers or health care records.

Prather said the company expects to pass a third-party audit of their system some time in October.

CEO Steve Prather

CEO Steve Prather

The average customer purchases Dizzion for about 200 desktops, Prather said, although some accounts are as large as 4,000 desktops.

Prather said businesses of that size, unlike Fortune 500 companies that buy remote desktop systems from giants like Hewlett-Packard and IBM, are an untapped market that would otherwise build a remote desktop service in-house.

“More often than not, the number one competitor is do-it-yourself,” he said.

Dizzion runs on most laptops, desktops, smartphones (with the exception of Blackberry devices) and tablets. Prather said that feature is important to businesses with temporary contractors or stay-at-home workers, since new hires can use a device they already own rather than one at the employer’s expense.

Dizzion charges for each desktop, which Prather said can be as low as $40 and has high as $75 a month depending on factors including which software applications and which compliance standards a customer needs.

Dizzion is looking to expand how many resellers and other distributors sell the startup’s service. Denver-based Hosting.com and ViaWest, for example, purchase Dizzion wholesale and resell it to customers as part of their bundle of products. (Prather and other company co-founders worked at ViaWest prior to founding Dizzion in 2011.) Dizzion also pays commissions to businesses that refer customers.

The startup does not disclose financial figures, but Prather said Dizzion has exceeded 100 percent year-over-year revenue growth for the past three years.

Dizzion, which has an office at 600 17th St., is also using this round of funding to update hardware infrastructure, Prather said.

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