Deskpro’s Next Chapter: $25m Series A Funding

Deskpro's Journey

In 2001 Deskpro was born in my Oxford University dorm room with a mission to make service more accessible to customers and to improve the agent experience in delivering excellence.

A lot has changed in the more than 20 years since! Hundreds of team members, thousands of truly wonderful customers, supporting completely new communication channels, launching six versions of our product, and witnessing the AI boom. Yet, our core mission remains unchanged: make it easier for customers to have their questions answered without fuss, and for organizations to deliver excellence in service at scale with empowered agents.

Deskpro has been profitable since its launch and has grown in both revenue and employee numbers every year since. We have always had the freedom to operate the business to the benefit of our customers and employees. But for me, 2023 felt like an inflexion point — the team was growing quickly, and v6 of our platform (Horizon) was being well-received. However, I was spending less time focusing on our product direction than I would have liked and felt an increasing ambition to grow faster and take Deskpro to thousands more customer worldwide. It was time for a new phase in Deskpro's story.

The Search for the Right Partner

Given the rapid growth and exciting opportunities I envisioned in Deskpro's future, I recognized the need for a strategic partner to help us scale further.

In looking for a partner; I wanted a few things.

• Deep experience in product-first software companies and giving them the investment necessary to be at the leading edge of product development
• An appreciation for our dual Cloud and On-Premise delivery model
• Understanding that SaaS can often mean "software and a service"
• The ambition to expand Deskpro into new markets
• Sharing in the excitement about the impact AI will have on our customers

These requirements were essential to forming a partnership that would enable Deskpro to grow while preserving the attributes that define who we are.

A lot of potential partners did not fit these requirements, but one team in particular did.

Announcing Our New Chapter

Once the team was selected we began, and continue, working towards the future of Deskpro. With this, I'm excited to announce:

1. Elsewhere Partners has invested $25M into Deskpro
   The Austin-based growth equity firm has made a significant investment that will provide us with the resources to accelerate our product development and expand our market reach, ensuring we remain at the forefront of innovation in our industry.
   
2. Brad Murdoch joins Deskpro as CEO
   Brad has extensive executive experience in US-based software companies including Prevoty, Framehawk, Nukona, OpenSpan, and JBoss. His wealth of experience will be invaluable as we navigate the next stage of our journey. Having Brad on board allows me to give even more time to focus on the Deskpro product strategy as Chief Product Officer.
   
3. Establishing Deskpro's Board of Directors
   Rod Favaron, Rita Selvaggi, and Nick Stoffregen join Brad and myself on Deskpro's board. Each brings decades of experience growing some of the best software companies in the world. Their insights and guidance will be crucial as we scale our operations and refine our strategies to deliver an even more impactful help desk platform.
   
4. Launching our US office in Austin, Texas
   We start this new journey with a new headquarters and with a significant investment in growing a new team from this location to better serve our North American customers.

What This Means for You

So what does this mean for you, our customer? Fundamentally, this funding round allows us to invest more in building out the Deskpro product that you know and love - enabling you to continue providing outstanding customer experiences. Our new AI capabilities are creating a buzz with our beta customers and we have an extensive roadmap with even more exciting functionality coming soon.

I’m personally very excited to be spending more of my time shaping what’s coming next and look forward to hearing from you on the types of capabilities that are meaningful to your business in the coming weeks and months.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Jason, Alastair, Nuno, Ejirie, and Freddie from FirstCapital for corporate finance advice on the transaction; Matt, Rebecca, Matthew, Victoria, Tom and Alice from Squire Patton Boggs; and Jo and Hannah from EY. But especially to my co-founder and CTO Chris Nadeau, the whole Deskpro team past and present and our thousands of wonderful customers.