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Melbourne cloud training start-up going global and raises $46m

Paul Smith
Paul SmithTechnology editor

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Rapid global growth at a Melbourne technology start-up which has become a supplier of cloud computing training to some of the world's largest companies has led to it closing a $46 million funding round from leading US and Australian backers.

A Cloud Guru was started by brothers Sam and Ryan Kroonenburg  in 2015, with Ryan teaching online courses in Amazon Web Services technology, and engineers signing up to access material to help them get accreditation for working with the fast-growing cloud company's systems.

The company raised $9 million in 2017 to help it grow and expand its courses and material to also include Microsoft's Azure cloud platform and Google's less popular, but fast-growing offering.

Its latest round was led by US-based growth equity firm Summit Partners, alongside Australian venture capital fund AirTree Ventures and existing investor, Boston-based Elephant.

Sam Kroonenburg told The Australian Financial Review that A Cloud Guru had received numerous in-bound offerings of investment due to the company's higher profile and bigger customer pool.

When it first started, the company targeted individuals keen to upskill in cloud skills to further their career, but it launched a business-focused learning management and talent development platform last year, which has attracted big customers including Dow Jones, Capital One and Qualcomm.

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While he declined to give specific details of its finances, Mr Kroonenburg said the company was reinvesting the money it made on growth rather than seeking to be profitable, and said revenue had increased by 80 per cent in the last 12 months.

"The market is just exploding; we basically have three of the largest companies in the world battling it out in Google, Microsoft and Amazon, trying to own the future of IT in the underlying infrastructure," Mr Kroonenburg said.

It has become one of the fastest growing companies we’ve seen come out of Australia in many years.

James Cameron, AirTree Ventures

"The market itself is growing 40 per cent year on year ... When my brother Ryan and I started the business we had a goal that we thought was unrealistic, to train 100,000 people, we did that within a year and now we are at 850,000 and we know we can train tens of millions."

For investors A Cloud Guru represents the still rare embodiment of the idea of being global from day one. While over 50 per cent of its staff is based in Australia, it does less than 5 per cent of its business here.

Brothers Sam (left) and Ryan Kroonenburg have grown a global online learning business from Australia 

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Nearly all of its revenue comes from the US and Europe, with some Asian markets also contributing. Most of its tech and back office staff are based in Australia, but all of its "go to market" employees are based out of an office in Austin, Texas, and it also has a smaller office in London.

"Being in Australia doesn’t hold us back, and it actually helps us because it makes us a little bit different for the US and European markets," Mr Kroonenburg said.

"Our customers see and hear us a lot on screen and enjoy the fact that the training has Aussie and British accents."

AirTree Ventures partner James Cameron said A Cloud Guru was in the right place at the right time as organisations and individuals looked to tackle issues surrounding the future of the workplace, and a society under-skilled in important areas.

"As technology and automation disrupt nearly every industry, Australians and people all over the world are recognising the need to upgrade their skills and sometimes even change careers entirely," Mr Cameron said.

"A Cloud Guru offers a way to do exactly that. It has already helped hundreds of thousands of people from around the world to reskill for the digital age ... [it] has become one of the fastest growing companies we’ve seen come out of Australia in many years."

Paul Smith edits the technology coverage and has been a leading writer on the sector for 20 years. He covers big tech, business use of tech, the fast-growing Australian tech industry and start-ups, telecommunications and national innovation policy. Connect with Paul on Twitter. Email Paul at psmith@afr.com

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