Kevin Gallagher: Inuvika Sells Enterprise Workspace App Virtualization Software

Inuvika sells enterprise workspace app virtualization software. Our product gives users secure access to their work apps from anywhere on any device. We reduce complexity for admin, provide a better user experience and reduce infrastructure requirements.

Lower infrastructure requirements means a reduced carbon footprint. We do this and, at the same time, dramatically lower the total cost of ownership by 50% when compared to the two main competitors in our market.

Tell us about yourself?

I used to practice law full time with an emphasis on M&A and technology during the dot com years. Virtualization was something that one of my clients was involved in early, before there was enough bandwidth to support what is possible now.

Fast forward 20 years and this opportunity landed on my lap after I had already left the practice of law. A team in northern France joined with another team based in Canada to start this adventure.

We figured we could build a better product that could reach markets where the existing products were not affordable or where admins may not have the technical skills required.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

I am not sure that two years would be back far enough. Choosing the right people is key to building any organization from scratch. It is hard to do and a lot of people aren’t cut out for the rough and tumble of a start up.

Those who are a good fit are able to work independently, be a jack of all trades and realize that if they don’t do the job, there is likely nobody else who will.

So, you need people who are willing to just roll up their sleeves and get it done. Being more selective on this front could have saved a fair bit of time and money.

What problem does your business solve?

We are bringing virtual workspaces to customers where it was not as accessible before. We are doing it by simplifying our product and by lowering costs. VDI, the old way in virtualization, is an overly complex product that delivers desktops when the end user generally only needs access to apps.

We just securely deliver the apps. The pandemic and the move to remote work has put us in middle of the largest shift in the way people work in several decades.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

The inspiration initially was to give secure access to apps for pharmaceutical research in genomics projects. Knowing that our product could play a role in medical breakthoughs was exciting.

But from there, we have been able to deliver applications to universities in Africa, to small busineses in India, to charities in Europe and to many businesses from SME’s to large enterprise.

We are proud that we can do these things while also having some of the worlds largest telcos now starting to use our product. Secure access to apps for work or education is paramount.

But so is the reduction of costs that are acheived when customers can replace desktops with thin clients and our product. We need to do both of these and still deliver a great work or learning experience to the end user.

What is your magic sauce?

Our main advantage is that we have an alternative solution for virtualization that strips out complexity and cost in ownership. It also streamlines operations in areas like support and admin, generating cost savings and time savings for IT departments.

We achieve that is through smart engineering with a Linux based product and competitive pricing. We eliminate a number of Microsoft licenses on the backend.

On each feature of product devleopment, we are asking if we can eliminate a step to make things a little easier for admin or the user. So there is a constant state of re-invention.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We are at the stage now where we are starting to work on strategic partnerships.

We would like our product integrated into the offerings of other products while, at the same time, continue to build our indirect sales model through greater investment in our channel. We are now selling in 40 countries, but that still leaves a lot of countries to get to.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

As a start up, raising capital is always the biggest challenge. There is never enough to do all the things you want to do.

So, staying focused and keeping the team focused on what is acheivable is the only way to survive. We have not had any large change of course and I attribute that to the focus that our team has had on building a really great product.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

We continue to look for VAR’s around the world who need an alternative to Citrix or VMware, both of which have been taken over by other companies recently. So there is a shake-up happening at our largest competitors.

With the economy also starting to look shakey, we hope to provide an alternative with an excellent user experience, easy admin and cost savings for IT departments who will be asked to do more with less in the next couple of years.