AppSense raises $70M from Goldman Sachs

The company poises itself to be a leader in the growing user virtualization market

User virtualization company AppSense announced late Tuesday night that it has raised $70 million a round of funding led by Goldman Sachs. This is the 12-year-old company's very first round of funding, and the new capital will be used to accelerate growth and expand to new geographies, namely those in South America and Asia. Additionally, Pete Perrone, managing director at Goldman Sachs, will be joining AppSense's board of directors.

Founded in 1999, AppSense's unique user virtualization platform allows organizations such as enterprise businesses and government groups to segregate the user personality from the operating system and applications so that users can be migrated to different hardware (as typically happens when a large company upgrades all of its computers) and the user information can be applied to any desktop on demand. Thus, IT can standardize the desktop build and migrate users in a much more streamlined, cost-effective way. 

"It's a new way to look at the corporate desktop," said AppSense CEO Darron Antill in a phone interview with VatorNews. "The piece that used to exist in the desktop now sits in its own layer."

The key sectors that the company serves ranges from finance to government and defense, to health. The company currently serves some 4,000 customers, including British Telecom, ESPN, JPMorgan Chase and United Airlines. Additionally, AppSense recently outfitted the Centers for Disease Control with its user virtualization solution for the agency's 16,000 employees across 25 countries. 

“With the increased mobility of the workforce and the need to be able to access information from any device, Goldman Sachs sees a clear demand for user virtualization solutions that span multiple desktop delivery methods,” said Pete Perrone in a prepared statement. “AppSense’s strong customer traction, history of innovative solutions in desktop computing, and the record growth it has experienced over the past two years further solidified our decision to invest in the company.”

So after 12 years of subsisting on its own organic growth, why did the company choose to raise outside funds now? User virtualization is expected to grow to become a $2 billion market over the next three years, and AppSense saw this as an ideal time to raise funds to position itself as a leader in the market, according to Darron Antill. 

AppSense has seen some pretty significant growth of its own over the last two years, growing its headcount 40% to 300 employees. The company has also seen record revenue in the last two years. In its last fiscal year (which ended in June 2010), the company took in $50 million in revenue, and this year it's on track for 60% growth.

When asked why the company chose to raise funds from Goldman Sachs, Antill commented: "They've got the number one reputation in the investment market. They only invest in top companies."

Image source: Appsense.com