Global cloud distributor Pax8 has raised $185m in new equity capital from first-time investor SoftBank, increasing the company’s valuation to $1.7 billion.
The Softbank Vision Fund led a funding round, with additional contributions from existing investors Catalyst Investors, Sageview Capital, Blue Cloud Ventures and Liberty Global Ventures.
As part of the transaction, Kristin Bannon, investment director at SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the Pax8 board.
Pax8 says its has supported 200,000 businesses with services from its cloud marketplace, served by 20,000 managed service partners. Pax8 supports billing, provisioning and the automation around the delivery of services.
“As we continue to evolve our technology and marketplace to meet the needs of SMBs, the new investment will provide capital to accelerate innovation and continued expansion into new global markets,” said John Street, CEO at Pax8. “This strong funding round reflects the powerful work Pax8 is doing to enable and grow SMBs through our partners.”
“Pax8 has disrupted the IT industry, exemplified courage through innovation, and has built the people, processes and technology to revolutionise the way businesses build and consume technology,” said Nagraj Kashyap, managing partner at SoftBank.
Earlier this year, Pax8 sealed a global agreement with SkyKick, to offer managed service providers access to its Cloud Manager application. The technology automates workflows and tasks to increase help desk productivity.
