Emerging Vendors 2018: Cloud Computing Companies To Watch

Cloudy, With A Strong Chance Of Growth

Worldwide spending for public cloud services and infrastructure is forecast to increase more than 23 percent this year to reach $160 billion, well on the way to a forecast of $277 billion in 2021, according to market researcher IDC.

Industry behemoths like Microsoft, AWS, Google and Salesforce.com certainly account for a significant portion of that. But the cloud computing market remains very dynamic with lots of room for startups with innovative products and services – and for the solution providers who partner with them.

As part of CRN's 2018 Emerging Vendors list, here are 16 hot cloud startups, all founded in 2012 or later, that solution providers should be aware of.

CloudHealth Technologies

Founded: 2012

Top Executive: CEO Tom Axbey

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=16

CloudHealth's platform gives businesses a single-pane-of-glass view of data, patterns and inefficiencies in their IT infrastructure. The system enables IT managers to optimize performance, automate governance, and manage costs in complex hybrid- and multi-cloud ecosystems.

Elastifile

Founded: 2013

Top Executive: CEO Erwan Menard

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=17

Elastifile's Cloud File System is a software-defined, high-performance distributed file system designed for massive scale and performance. It provides unified data management for file and object storage, enabling seamless integration of cloud resources.

ELE.ai

Founded: 2017

Top Executive: CEO John Shaw

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=18

ELE.ai is an artificial intelligence delivery system and artificial intelligence application marketplace. The company provides an AI assessment tool, AI education, the marketplace and a dashboard to manage all AI applications. ELE.ai's target markets are solution providers and managed service providers.

HarmonyPSA

Founded: 2017

Top Executive: CEO Steve Duckworth

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=19

HarmonyPSA's next-generation professional services automation software is targeted at MSPs, ISVs, VARs and professional service providers. It offers contract modeling to automate cloud product sales, combined with CRM, service desk and project management functionality, delivering real-time profitability analysis, indexed by employee, project, contract, client and organization.

Nerdio

Founded: 2016

Top Executive: CEO Vadim Vladimirskiy

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=20

Nerdio's two mainstay products are Nerdio for Azure, IT automation technology that delivers easy provisioning, management and optimization for Microsoft Cloud; and Nerdio for Private Cloud, which delivers comprehensive virtual IT infrastructure, including virtual hardware, software, security, and backup/disaster recovery.

OpsRamp

Founded: 2014

Top Executive: CEO Varma Kunaparaju

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=21

OpsRamp offers a cloud-based IT operations management platform that helps IT infrastructure teams act like service providers to the business. System capabilities include discovery (visibility into complex IT landscapes), intelligence (helping IT managers turn insight into action), and optimization to improve system performance.

Platform9 Systems

Founded: 2013

Top Executive: CEO Sirish Raghuram

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=22

Platform9's vendor-agnostic hybrid cloud system helps solution providers deliver cloud technologies with a 100 percent success rate. Platform9's SaaS model for OpenStack and Kubernetes enables faster time to value, eliminates maintenance requirements and integrates with pre-existing infrastructure. Target markets include enterprise IT and ISVs.

Rubrik

Founded: 2014

Top Executive: Co-Founder, CEO Bipul Sinha

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=23

Rubrik's software-defined platform unifies data backup, recovery, replication, search, analytics, archiving, compliance and copy data management across the data center and hybrid cloud environments. The company's new Polaris software provides a unified system of record across business applications for data security, compliance and governance.

Sapho

Founded: 2014

Top Executive: Co-Founder, CEO Fouad ElNaggar

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=24

Sapho has designed an employee portal for the digital workplace, using micro apps to deliver personalized and relevant tasks and information from existing systems to any device, intranet or messenger. The result is a continuous, consistent experience for employees across all systems.

Simpplr

Founded: 2014

Top Executive: Founder, CEO Dhiraj Sharma

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=25

Intranets typically fail because they are hard to use, have an unengaging user interface and are difficult to maintain. Simpplr's social intranet for distributed organizations provides an immersive user experience, distributed administration, integration with cloud-based technologies, embedded artificial intelligence and rapid deployment.

Sky Data Vault

Founded: 2013

Top Executive: Co-Founder,President, Dave McPeak; Co-Founder, VP, Sales, Strategy Michael Thompson (pictured)

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=26

Sky Data Vault provides a portfolio of fully managed data protection and recovery (DRaaS) services including direct-to-cloud backup, hybrid DRaaS and direct-to-cloud DRaaS. The system offers on-premises and cloud-based recovery options, including full recovery within minutes.

TetherView

Founded: 2014

Top Executive: CEO Michael Abboud

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=27

TetherView’s powerful virtual desktops include everything up to and including the operating system. TetherView engineers custom-build and fully deploy the desktops. The company says its flat-fee structure ensures high performance and availability.

Uila

Founded: 2013

Top Executive: CEO Chia-Chee Kuan

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=28

Uila's application-centric infrastructure monitoring and analytics system identifies performance bottlenecks for business-critical services and helps develop workload migration strategies for private and hybrid cloud environments. The product primarily targets enterprise IT operations teams that oversee private, public and hybrid cloud systems.

Velostrata

Founded: 2014

Top Executive: Co-Founder, CEO Issy Ben-Shaul

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=29

Velostrata's technology accelerates enterprise-scale cloud migration with speed, scale and simplicity while maximizing application uptime. Unlike replication-based approaches, Velostrata's agentless platform moves applications to the cloud in minutes, is easy to deploy and significantly reduces migration risks.

YayPay

Founded: 2015

Top Executive: Co-Founder, CEO Anthony Venus

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=30

Yaypay AR is an all-in-one accounts receivable system that makes collecting money fast, easy, and highly predictable. Capabilities include DSO in real time, evident aging, cash prediction, trends, invoices performance, accounts receivable team efficiency, and automated collection activity.

ZeroStack

Founded: 2014

Top Executive: President, CEO David Greene

Emerging vendor details: /rankings-and-lists/ev2018-details.htm?c=31

ZeroStack is a one-stop shop for cloud infrastructure, helping enterprise businesses and MSPs simplify operations, reduce costs, and accelerate IT by 10X compared with virtualized solutions while maintaining IT control. ZeroStack enables multi-tenant, multi-cloud, and containerized environments with a future-ready architecture.