Datto CEO talks of increased support for partners post-IPO

It has been quite a week for the leadership team at Datto, with the business launching on the New York Stock Exchange and raising almost $600m.

Going public might mean many things to those who have worked hard to reach that milestone, but it should not make too much difference to partners, with the firm keen to maintain its momentum with the channel.

“In some ways it doesn’t mean too much to a partner as we’re the same company today that we were before going public,” said Tim Weller, CEO of Datto.

“One of the things that attracted me to Datto was the just immutable culture around creating technology for MSPs – it’s deep in our core. For us, it means internally an ability to invest more in technology. It’s a capital raise, so it strengthens the balance sheet of the company. It means a little more global branding, so we can enter some new markets and expand our overall reach.”

Some of those funds coming from the IPO will also benefit partners because the business will have more financial muscle.

“For a partner, which is the lens we look through – the MSP lens – it means more engineers at Datto, more product people, more innovation and more support,” said Weller. “We think about both the technology the partner sells to their customers to keep their businesses growing and we think about the partner experience that we provide to save MSPs time to make their lives easier. When they grow, we grow.”

Weller said the IPO and the finances raised would allow the firm to go faster and by going public, it had also been able to promote the managed service provider community and had seen more investors understand the benefits of that model.

“We really got excited telling the story, but through the lens of MSPs, investors are getting it,” he said. “They are understanding that this is how small-business IT is going to be delivered. The public markets did not have a good understanding of the MSP industry, and it will take time, but it is now $137bn globally, so it’s not so small any more.”

Weller said Datto had chosen the symbol MSP as a “salute to its partners” and it was a public debut of the community and promoting the important role they play in delivering IT to customers – an essential during the pandemic.

Throughout the pandemic, Datto has been holding events with partners and at the most recent one, Weller said it looked like April would mark the worst of times and since then, the channel has seen pipelines start to recover.

“It’s a journey and each month is definitely getting better,” he said. “I don’t take lightly how hard MSPs are working. I don’t take lightly that some of them are facing challenges.

“Small to medium businesses are using technology and deploying it faster than ever. In a pandemic, offline was out of the game and online was the game, so MSPs have sensed the opportunity. We play the long game and we are very much there for partners.”