AWS Cloud Management Startup 2nd Watch Raises $10M, Names New CEO

2nd Watch, a provider of cloud management software for Amazon Web Services has extended a 2013 Series C funding round by $10 million and announced a new CEO. Tech veteran Doug Schneider replaces founder Kris Bliesner, who will continue to lead the company's technical direction as CTO.

Top Tier Capital Partners led the new investment, with participation from existing investors Madrona Venture Group and Columbia Capital. 2nd Watch has raised more than $37 million in venture capital since 2010.

The company's cloud-native platform helps large organizations manage mission critical applications, computing and data in the cloud and make a transition to the cloud. The company says it has effectively moved more than 2 megawatts of enterprise data center capacity into the AWS cloud in more than 300 migrations.

The new funds will expand its sales, marketing and product development efforts and finance its geographic expansion ambitions.

Appointment of the new CEO and more finding may indicate that the company has reached a certain level of maturity. Technology-minded founder CEOs often step aside to make room for experienced business-growth-minded executives once their companies reach a certain point in their development.

2nd Watch says it has seen a major increase in bookings recently, and the company is part of a select group of AWS Premier Consulting partners, which puts it in the company of the enterprise IT services giants like Accenture, Capgemini, Infosys and Wipro, among others.

“Large companies moving beyond initial cloud infrastructure deployments to far more sizable commitments need partners with experience in strategically approaching the shift and then managing these projects,” Schneider said.

He was previously president of the hosting provider Verio, which he helped go public prior to its acquisition bu NTT Communications for more than $5 billion. His twenty-year record includes leading several companies towards acquisition, starting with Colorado Internet Services (acquired by Verio), followed by the CEO position at AllCall (sold to Nextel). All tenures led to acquisitions, save for Schneider’s most recent, as acting executive vice president and general manager at Melbourne IT.

“He’s a skilled leader with considerable business-building acumen who has founded, guided and grown several successful enterprise companies over the past two decades," Bliesner said about his company's new CEO. "2nd Watch and its customers are in great hands with Doug at the helm.”