Sal Sferlazza and Christopher Matarese first joined forces as 12-year-old camp friends, pooling their savings to buy a strategy board game. Four decades later, their partnership has grown into something far more significant. NinjaOne, a leading IT management platform, has secured a staggering $500 million in fresh funding led by Iconiq Growth and CapitalG, bringing its valuation to an impressive $5 billion. Just a year ago, in February 2024, NinjaOne was valued at $1.9 billion after its Series C funding.
Despite their massive success, Sferlazza and Matarese remain as close as ever. Their decades-long friendship has become a cornerstone of their business success, helping them thrive more.
The Birth of NinjaOne: A Solution to IT Pain Points
Sferlazza, a serial entrepreneur with seven startups under his belt, and Matarese, a Harvard-trained lawyer, began working together in the early 2000s. Their fourth venture, NinjaOne, was born when Sferlazza realized that managed service providers (MSPs), the outsourced IT teams small businesses rely on, were struggling with outdated tools.
He identified a pressing challenge: “endpoint sprawl.” As businesses increasingly relied on various devices, IT teams needed a centralized platform to manage, update, and secure them efficiently. NinjaOne emerged as the ultimate solution, streamlining IT operations for both MSPs and in-house IT teams. Today, NinjaOne counts Nvidia, Lyft, and Porsche among its customers.
What Sets NinjaOne Apart?
The endpoint management sector is packed with big players like Microsoft and Kaseya, but NinjaOne’s cloud-native approach gives it a significant edge. Unlike legacy systems attempting to modernize outdated technology, NinjaOne builds its solutions from scratch, keeping pace with evolving customer needs.
Derek Zanutto, a general partner at CapitalG, explained why his firm backed NinjaOne after evaluating more than 30 companies in the space:
“They’re taking leftovers from the fridge and trying to reheat those, chop them up, and create some frittata. The Ninja team went to the grocery store with a shopping list of all fresh ingredients to make what they wanted to make.”
Zanutto sees NinjaOne as an “automated pit crew” for IT teams, helping organizations stress-test and fine-tune their devices across vast networks. He even believes NinjaOne could become “the next CrowdStrike”, a generational company in IT management.
Strategic Expansion and a $250M Acquisition
With its fresh funding, NinjaOne is making strategic moves to expand its offerings. A major part of this strategy is its $250 million acquisition of Dropsuite, a backup and data protection company.
Roy Luo, general partner at Iconiq Growth, sees this as a crucial step in NinjaOne’s evolution:
“NinjaOne is a business that has really broad potential and aspirations to be transformational in the IT arena.”
By expanding its product suite, NinjaOne is now competing in the same league as Datadog and ServiceNow, leaders in IT operations and security.
Is an IPO on the Horizon?
With a $5 billion valuation and 1,500 employees, NinjaOne is an IPO candidate, but for now, Sferlazza and Matarese are focused on scaling the company rather than going public.
Reflecting on their journey, Matarese compares their current strategic decision-making to their childhood passion for board games:
“Now we’re making strategic moves with the company and trying to do what’s best for the business, the employees, and the customers. So it’s fun to see it come full circle.”
NinjaOne’s meteoric rise is no accident. With its customer-first approach, innovative technology, and strong leadership, it has positioned itself as an industry leader in IT management.
