10 Coolest Cloud Startups Of 2013

What's Cool On The Cloud Front

As the cloud continues to evolve and spread through the IT marketplace, cloud startups are leading the charge in expanding its capabilities and functionality. From application management to SaaS, it's all about adding features and improving the quality of the cloud for clients. With the new year just around the corner, CRN looks back at some of the coolest cloud startups from 2013.

Green Cloud Technologies

CEO: Shay Houser
Headquarters: Greenville, S.C.


Based out of Greenville, S.C., Green Cloud Technologies works to protect data in the cloud through disaster recovery solutions that mirror a user's current server in case of disaster and also provides a video conferencing technology, called iMeet, in case the office can't be reached because of a disaster. Green Cloud Technologies offers a virtual server solution through VMware's virtualization software to back up its disaster recovery solutions. In April, Green Cloud Technologies received $5.6 million in Series C funding that will be put toward sales, marketing and building out its data centers.

Green Cloud Technologies is a 100 percent-channel company, with both an authorized partner program and a white-label cloud solution.

ClearSlide

CEO: Al Lieb
Headquarters: San Francisco


ClearSlide helps companies improve customer relations through the cloud with a sales engagement platform that provides visibility and analytics. Some of its big-name clients include Rackspace, Thompson Reuters, LinkedIn, AOL and Lexis Nexis. The platform provides insight into how sales efforts are going, how clients are responding and various applications to help with the process on the go.

In March, ClearSlide grew in size through an acquisition of VMware's SlideRocket, a SaaS presentation business, for an undisclosed amount. The company said it planned to integrate SlideRocket's features into its sales engagement software.

ProfitBricks

CEO: Achim Weiss
Headquarters: Cambridge, Mass.


"Cloud Computing 1.0 has not delivered on the promise of the Cloud, ... so we developed Cloud Computing 2.0," ProfitBricks says on its website.

For ProfitBricks, it's not just about moving to the cloud though; it's about moving to a flexible, cost-effective cloud. Customers and partners can choose the CPU, RAM and block storage best suited for their needs. It has more than 37 data centers with more than 70,000 servers in both the U.S. and Europe. ProfitBricks has both a referral partner program and a reseller program. The referral program, launched in January, offers partners up to 25 percent of revenue from clients brought on board.

ScaleXtreme

CEO: Nand Mulchandani
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.


Providing cloud-management solutions for enterprises, ScaleXtreme helps its clients and partners manage across private and 15 different public clouds. The biggest benefit of ScaleXtreme is that it lets clients move to the cloud as fast or slow as they are able, instead of having to go all in at once, CEO Nand Mulchandani told CRN.

Right now, ScaleXtreme sells 40 percent through resellers and 60 percent direct, but as the company establishes itself more, it hopes to push toward a more channel-centric model, Mulchandani said.

Stackdriver

Co-Founders: Izzy Azeri (pictured right) and Dan Belcher
Headquarters: Boston


To help businesses adapt to an already cloud-filled world, Stackdriver provides cloud-native application monitoring technologies for public cloud environments. It wants to make monitoring-as-a-service as accessible to solution providers as software-as-a-service is today. The company first launched its Stackdriver Intelligent Monitoring product for general availability in September alongside receiving $10 million in Series B venture capital investment. Filling the gaps between AWS infrastructure-level analytics and a need for application-level analytics, Stackdriver Intelligent Monitoring helps to flag problems before they occur, recognize unwanted function redundancies and improve performance.

Ravello Systems

CEO: Rami Tamir
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.


Ravello Systems looks to address the challenges posed by the divergence from today's cloud world to the future of the industry, according to the company. Ravello's main product, Cloud Application Hypervisor, lets enterprises package and operate their applications and then moves them seamlessly into either private or public cloud environments.

In August, the startup launched a SaaS offering that lets enterprises test their applications in a public cloud environment that mimics their own, allowing them enough space to pick out bugs without infecting their own systems.

Sumo Logic

CEO: Vance Loiselle
Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif.


Sumo Logic uses log data to help enterprises analyze infrastructure, remedy application issues and uncover security issues.

At AWS re:invent, Sumo Logic unveiled its AWS CloudTrail product that works to log all API calls through AWS for analysis and insight into unusual activity from a variety of sources.

The products appeal to a variety of partners, from managed service providers to system integrators to cloud providers and value-added resellers looking to improve customer support through analyzing the massive amounts of customer data.

BetterCloud

CEO: David Politis
Headquarters: New York


BetterCloud enables IT providers to put forward a better Google Apps experience for clients, helping more than 14 million users since 2011, according to the company. The BetterCloud Console lets resellers set up new accounts, monitor accounts, find training opportunities and stay on top of client renewals. According to the company, it is the only console on the market that facilitates purchasing additional seats through the console. The company is 100 percent Google-focused, and its console is built within the Google App Engine so enterprise clients don’t have to fuss with multiple systems.

CareCloud

CEO: Albert Santalo
Headquarters: Miami


With all the buzz around health care lately, CareCloud has been carving out a spot for itself providing health companies with the systems and solutions to grow their business to keep up with the evolving marketplace. Creating what it calls a "digital ecosystem," CareCloud works to provide quick exchanges of information and communication. From electronic health records to patient billing to operations to patient engagement, CareCloud provides solutions that, according to the company, simplify the process to make it seamless for the patient, practitioner and insurance company.

Mojave Networks

CEO: Garrett Larsson
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.

As BYOD becomes more and more popular in the workplace, Mojave Networks helps enterprises jump on the BYOD trend safely by creating their own network for Android or iOS devices, which lets them track application and data usage and identify threats before they attack. Fresh off of a $5 million venture capital investment by Bessemer Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital, Mojave Networks, formerly Clutch Mobile, is looking to expand its R&D and partner growth for its cloud-based mobile security offering for enterprise clients.