SA国际传媒

, a SaaS platform that aims to offer a secure way to deploy a virtual workforce, has raised $10 million in a Series A round, the Ontario, Canada-based company told SA国际传媒 News exclusively.

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Toronto-based 1 led the investment, with participation from BDC Capital鈥檚 Industrial, Clean and Energy Technology .

Tehama says that its cloud-based platform can deliver 鈥渉ighly secure鈥� virtual offices, rooms and desktops 鈥渁nywhere in minutes鈥� as it can run in any web browser on any device. The beauty of its offering, it claims, is that it requires no聽 professional services, no infrastructure installation and no networks to retool.

This is particularly meaningful in the post-COVID-19 pandemic world where so many people are working remotely due to shelter-in-place orders.

鈥淭he future of work is virtual, and that future has now permanently been accelerated,鈥� said Tehama Founder and CEO . 鈥淭oday, almost every enterprise is grappling with challenges of an immediate work-from-home mandate such as security, bandwidth, performance, audit and compliance issues. There鈥檚 an urgent need for a new way to enable a secure virtual workforce.鈥�

Proven technology

While Tehama is a relatively new company, its technology is not. Tehama was born out of , a 23-year-old IT services company that Vall茅e also founded. Over the years, the Pythian team built tools to help it securely deliver IT services to global clients with strict security and compliance requirements. That technology was used to onboard third-party vendors securely and to help them work with 鈥渢op talent鈥� remotely without compromising security.

鈥淲e were operating in the remote database admin space,鈥� Vall茅e explains. 鈥淐IOs were concerned about giving access to all of their most sensitive data, so we created this technology to address their security and compliance challenges. Over time, it became clear that there was a greater need to expand and take the product to market.鈥�

Tehama launched to the public in September 2018, spun off from Pythian in September 2019, and now has more than 150 enterprises using the platform (including Fox Sports, National Geographic, the University of Utah and mapp).

At the time of its spinoff, it had more than 100 customers. In the first quarter of 2020 alone, Tehama added 30 percent of its customers and saw a 67 percent increase in usage, Vall茅e said.

So, not only is the company winning more new customers, it鈥檚 seeing existing customers use its platform even more.

鈥淎lmost immediately, we saw an explosion in business due to the COVID-19 crisis,鈥� Vall茅e told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淐ertainly, we鈥檙e not celebrating it. But it鈥檚 true that we are all now very concerned and dealing with massive changes in businesses and to our lives. So it鈥檚 fair to say the pandemic has dramatically accelerated our vision.鈥�

鈥淭he world in May 2020 is radically different from the world in January 2020,鈥� he continued. 鈥淭here are dramatically more enterprises with the majority of their workforce working from home than there ever has been in the history of humanity.鈥�

Tehama currently has 60 employees, up from about 12 last year at this time.

How it works

Tehama鈥檚 main goal is to help remote workers connect to enterprise systems and data safely. It does this via virtual rooms that serve as an airlock for data, Vall茅e said.

鈥淭he rooms let workers in but the data can鈥檛 escape,鈥� he told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淭here鈥檚 like a security guard at the door, making sure only the right people get in. And there are rules for what you can exist with.鈥�

Once inside one of these rooms, a worker is equipped with all the tools needed to be efficient working from home, according to Vall茅e. They have the ability to access secrets and share files, among other things.

鈥淯ltimately, the room provides a compliance-oriented and security-oriented feature set around complete visibility of what happened in the room, and who enabled it to happen,鈥� Vall茅e told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淭here鈥檚 an evidence trail of every configuration, every authentication and every access to data.鈥�

Investor POV

, venture partner at OMERS Ventures, said his firm had been looking at the desktop virtualization space for some time and appreciated Tehama鈥檚 security and compliance-focused approach.

The company is addressing the market from a fresh perspective, 鈥渨ith compliance and security built in, unencumbered by legacy technology,鈥� he added.

“This puts them in a unique position to deliver an effective solution, satisfying both the end-user experience and their enterprise IT requirements,鈥� Chance said. OMERS was also impressed by Vallee鈥檚 success with Pythian.

鈥淲hen investing at Series A it鈥檚 important to have conviction in the founder鈥檚 ability to build a strong business,鈥� he told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淲ith his track record, and the solid team already onboard, there鈥檚 no doubt at all that Paul Vallee has that in spades.鈥�

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