Founder Mathias Van Hoorde (pictured right): 'Some companies have cold feet about migrating to the cloud because they fear uncontrollable costs, migration problems or a heavy workload for their teams. That is now a thing of the past. Our brand new CloudSisters Service Platform allows customers to bring their applications and services to the cloud themselves in a secure and compliant way.'
'By compliant, we mean that the platform ensures regulatory compliance with regard to data storage, management, and security. An automated self-service approach with drag-and-drop functionality replaces labor-intensive manual work. This reduces the likelihood of human error. This reduces management costs. A dashboard provides a transparent overview of the environment and operational costs.'
Revolutionary platform
CloudSisters presents itself as a young challenger in the cloud market. 'Feel free to call our platform revolutionary,' says Mathias Van Hoorde. 'It ensures that companies can make the transition to cloud faster, easier and safer. We build and host the platform primarily in AWS, the leading provider with an open structure and excellent service.'
In addition, the start-up also focuses on data, AI and machine learning applications for specific industries.
Consultancy according to the 'value first principle'
CloudSisters also provides consulting services. Mathias Van Hoorde: 'As a managed service provider, we assist customers with advice on their cloud issues. We assess the current cloud environment through reputable IT models and advise on cloud migrations and optimal management.'
These days, the cloud first strategy is popular, but CloudSisters does not support it. 'That one brings possible risks. We opt for the value first strategy that bets on hybrid clouds,' says Mathias Van Hoorde. 'Evaluate each application individually before migrating them. Often there is no added value in moving a stable or an old legacy application to the public cloud. We help identify those issues.'
Seniors with decades of experience
CloudSisters' team is eight strong. It brings with it the knowledge of more than 20 years of experience in private cloud and eight years in public cloud.
The company is initially targeting medium and large companies in the Benelux market, but is not hiding larger international ambitions. Within five years, CloudSisters is aiming for sales of 15 million euros.
Hip sister of Rank 1
CloudSisters strengthens the Gumption group with its know-how, which complements the digital expertise of the other companies. 'Our sister company at Gumption is Rank 1, a strong holder in the group for ten years,' says Mathias Van Hoorde. 'CloudSisters' expertise dovetails seamlessly with Rank 1's. It is obvious that we will often work together in the context of hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments.'
'While Rank 1 is leading in classic IT infrastructure, we complement them with our innovative cloud solutions, cloud consulting and our new platform. Think of us as the young, hip sister (laughs).'
Entrepreneurial partner
Chief technology officer Wouter Reyntjens is co-owner of CloudSisters. It is a deliberate choice of the founders to start the company with the group.
'Gumption is so much more than an investor,' says Mathias Van Hoorde. 'From the very first meeting, we noticed that Bart Embrechts of Gumption and Peter Vindevogel of Rank 1 think along with us as entrepreneurs. How do we make a difference in our business? How do we join hands with fellow companies? It immediately became about so much more than just the numbers. Entrepreneurship, co-creation and the content of the business are also central. We were looking for such a partner.
Visit the website at www.cloudsisters.be
