Matt Peters has worked for cybersecurity vendors for over 10 years. He was a team leader at Check Point, was promoted to vice president of worldwide operations at FireEye, and spent more than four years as chief product officer at Expel, a managed detection and response company.
Peters says there was a surprising commonality between all of these experiences. IT teams were frustrated because technology expectations rarely matched reality.
Organizations demand a lot from their IT departments. According to one poll, nearly one-third of the average corporate banking staff gets a response from their IT department within an hour. Roughly the same percentage expect their employer to support them with new tools they require them to learn.
Amid these challenges, Peters saw an opportunity. Peters, along with former Expel colleagues Peter Silverman and Mase Issa, founded Fixify, an IT help desk platform that embraces automation.
Fixify connects to your existing IT ticketing systems, such as Jira and ServiceNow, to automatically classify tickets and identify problem “hotspots.” Fixify uses AI to identify the root cause of issues and employs IT analysts to diagnose and resolve issues.
“Fixify is designed for technology-centric organizations of 100 to 2,000 employees who are interested in providing a high-quality IT help desk experience but cannot invest in the necessary staff and technology stack.” Peters said. “We charge an annual subscription based on the number of employees a customer has. For a company with 750 employees, the cost is $9,000 per month, or the cost of one full-time help desk analyst. I will.”
Peters said Fixify uses sentiment analysis tools to gauge the tone and urgency of incoming requests. This not only helps with triage, he says, but also gives analysts an idea of what to expect and how to respond.
“By tracking sentiment from the beginning to the end of a ticket, we can monitor the user experience and quickly identify when special attention is needed,” added Peters.
When analysts process tickets, Fixify customers and their own IT employees can lend a hand if they wish. Fixify automatically updates ticket status to keep everyone on the same page.
From Fixify's admin dashboard, customers can specify which ticket categories they want analysts to prioritize. You can also view performance metrics (such as time to resolution) and suggestions for proactively addressing issues, and submit requests to remove sensitive information from Fixify's platform. (By default, Fixify retains data for 12 months according to “customer needs and contractual obligations.”)
“Our goal is to manage approximately three-quarters of our customers' ticket volumes from start to finish, rather than just rerouting them,” he continued. “Our AI assists IT analysts by suggesting next steps based on each customer’s specific process. It also analyzes ticket context and playbook instructions to help IT analysts adapt to each task. Identify relevant tools.
IT teams are finding their limits increasingly narrow and are increasingly embracing automation. In a December 2023 Digitate survey, 90% of IT decision makers said they plan to implement more automation in the next 12 months, particularly in functions such as finance and customer support.
Fixify's backend ticket monitoring dashboard. Users can take a snapshot of unresolved issues here. Image credit: Modified
The idea of high-tech IT outsourcing is not new. Several startups are experimenting with this idea, including Primo (which focuses specifically on hardware), Fleet (which also focuses on hardware), and Wizeline.
But there is a lot of money in this area. According to Avasant Research's 2023 IT Outsourcing Statistics Study, organizations increased their annual IT outsourcing budgets by 8.1% last year. Deloitte predicts that total spending on IT outsourcing will reach $519 billion by 2023, a 22% increase from 2019.
Investors seem to be attracted to Fixify's automation angle. Perhaps because of the potential for automation to increase productivity while reducing overhead.
This month, Fixify closed a $25 million Series A round co-led by Costanoa Ventures, Decibel Partners, and Paladin Capital Group, with participation from Scale Venture Partners. Mourad Yesayan, Managing Director of Paladin, will join Fixify's board of directors as part of the transaction.
“The widespread technology slowdown has actually created some opportunities for us,” Peters said. “This Series A investment will fund us for the foreseeable future through the economic upturn that many economists are predicting.”
Arlington, Virginia-based Fixify was founded in 2023 and has raised $32 million to date. The company's near-term focus is on growing its 41 employees and customer base, which currently numbers 15 companies.