AnyDesk, a developer of remote desktop software, raises $ 70 million to a value of $ 660 million or more

Remote and hybrid work is the rule of the day, and AnyDesk, a company that helps make it easy - regardless of the architecture of a company's network or where a person happens to work - has announced a $ 70 million round of funding. its expansion. According to the Stuttgart-based business, the Series C is worth more than $ 600 million.

General Atlantic is leading the round, with the participation of previous investors Insight Partners, EQT Ventures and Possible Ventures.

When it comes to how they work, knowledge workers nowadays have many options: apps and documents now often live in the cloud, and we often have fast connections to access them; and although virtualization was estimated to be used by only 30% of companies last year, it is expected to see an increase in adoption this year as covid-19-led digital transformation continues to play out. Still, there is a lot to do when it comes to providing workers with solutions that simply work, regardless of how companies have built, managed or invested in their IT infrastructure, or how good the connection happens to be.

This is the big market gap that AnyDesk operates in, and it has attracted a lot of attention.

"The goal was to develop the slim and smallest software that was easy for most people to use," said AnyDesk CEO and co-founder Philipp Weiser about the company's original concept. According to the company, AnyDesk can work on connections as low as 100 kbps and still run nice graphics. "Because of these things, the IT community likes us."

What AnyDesk does is a bit anachronistic: not only is the software proprietary - that is, closed source - but it recognizes all the actual shortcomings of today's IT landscape, and it's there to meet the needs of all the many companies out there. where either can not or does not want to buy into the concept of "digital transformation", at least not enough to move its infrastructure to the cloud.

"There is a countermeasure for every business," Weiser added, emphasizing that for every company that invests in virtualization, there are examples of how this can not work. "Production tubes can not be moved to the cloud." It has certain dangers. "He also mentioned that in circumstances where data is required by law to be stored in a single nation, AnyDesk can be used to allow workers in remote areas to work with it without the use of VPNs (which have their own ) latency and other reliability problems.) In short, "reality is usually much more complex," he argued.

It has proven to be a lucrative industry for AnyDesk. Its software, which lets people create a low-latency mirror of a connected device's desktop on another computer (computer, phone or whatever), has been downloaded 500 million times since its launch in 2014, and it sees more than 900 million sessions per month, "spans" 50 million miles on average. It has 80,000 customers, which include educational and government institutions, media companies, IT services and a number of other significant companies.

AnyDesk's appeal stems in part from its speed, but it also stems from how priced it is: individuals can use it for free, while corporate customers can purchase services in a number of levels from around $ 10 / month.

As you might expect, the increase in telecommuting and hybrid work that has swept the world over the past 20 months has resulted in a significant increase in the business of AnyDesk, providing a quick alternative for many customers who needed to log in and use their computers remotely. for the first time unexpectedly. In fact, downloads have more than doubled in the past year. But this was not done in a hurry. According to Weiser, the design of how AnyDesk works makes it incredibly secure to use - connections are encrypted and individuals (and organizations, when using a business plan) can change security settings.

Although it is a bit of a renegade, the purpose is to provide VPN connectivity for people who want it, and there may be plans to work in more established virtualization technology in the future. According to Weiser, the major providers of virtualization and remote services often contact AnyDesk, and it's easy to see how that would make sense as a complement to what they currently provide customers, especially in more ad hoc scenarios when virtualized access is not feasible.

Flexibility, especially the fact that it gives business users another option for services, is a significant attraction for investors, as is the market's appeal.

"AnyDesk is a prime example of the innovative, forward-looking companies that are transforming Germany on a large scale." "We trust the company's capacity to produce next-generation solutions that fit the demands of this new era of teleworking and are happy to help Philipp Weiser and the AnyDesk team as they continue to set new industry standards," said Achim Berg, chief executive. partner at General Atlantic. With this round, he joins the board.

"We were particularly pleased with the worldwide activity levels based on a technology stack designed for a linked multi-platform, hybrid work environment future," said Christian Figge, CEO of General Atlantic. "We will help the company expand its services to corporate customers worldwide."