Written by Bain Capital Ventures Managing Director Enrique Salem

We all use Slack, Dropbox, G Suite and other SaaS applications because they make it easier to communicate and collaborate. But if you’re using these tools at work, there’s a good chance your IT department is less enthusiastic about them than you are. For an IT administrator, SaaS applications are complex and difficult to manage — a problem only exacerbated as businesses move all their most important processes to the cloud.

BetterCloud is changing this by offering the first central console to easily oversee, orchestrate and operationalize mission-critical enterprise SaaS apps. We are proud to lead the company’s $60 million Series E round and join its syndicate of top investors.

I’m especially looking forward to serving on BetterCloud’s board and working closely with CEO David Politis and the rest of the BetterCloud team. David has unparalleled domain expertise from his years at Cloud Sherpas, is a well-known thought leader through his book Controlling Your SaaS Environment and has proven to be masterful at recruiting and keeping the best talent in the business.

The need for BetterCloud’s solution

BetterCloud launched in 2011 initially as a tool to manage Google G Suite applications, and five years later completely rebuilt its system to manage Office 365, Salesforce, Dropbox, Box, Slack and a growing list of enterprise SaaS applications.

This pivot made great sense, as businesses rebuild their IT stacks with a variety of point SaaS solutions that offer enhanced usability and productivity. In fact, in the next few years, SaaS products could account for more than 40 percent of the total software market, according to IDC Worldwide.

But with the adoption of SaaS apps comes a loss of control for IT departments. Apps with sharing capabilities bring security concerns, and staying on top of this — along with regulatory requirements, permissions and other issues — means hours of manual effort.

IT administrators have been clamoring for a better management tool, and BetterCloud is the only company offering it.

Impressive growth and loyal customers

BetterCloud spent two years moving beyond G Suite and developing a central console to automate and manage policies for a variety of SaaS apps. This two-year endeavor created a unique service separating BetterCloud completely from its rivals.

BetterCloud has since forged partnerships with Microsoft, Dropbox, Box, Salesforce and a growing set of important SaaS players. Along the way the company has raised funding from firms like Accel Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners and Greycroft.

Even as the company focused on rebuilding its platform over the past two years, it saw continued growth in customers and revenue. Last year platform sales grew more than 70 percent quarter over quarter, culminating in BetterCloud’s best quarter ever at the end of the year and marking 18 consecutive quarters of growth in annual recurring revenue.

Any rivals to BetterCloud are going to have a lot of catching up to do.

Offering the right tool at the right time

The market is speaking clearly: IT operators want the management capabilities BetterCloud offers and SaaS apps will only gain in popularity.

As companies increasingly migrate their processes to the cloud, all employees need the boost in productivity they get from using Slack, Dropbox, Office 365 and other great apps. Thanks to BetterCloud, IT administrators too can work well in this SaaS world.

I’m excited to be a part of helping David and his team build a special company that enables IT at companies all around the world to transition to a modern SaaS architecture.

Read BetterCloud’s open letter to customers about this new funding here.