Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Her business helps clients use cloud computing smartly

Center City B2B startup Cloudamize helps businesses enhance benefits while on Amazon's cloud.

Khushboo Shah is Founder & CEO of Cloudamize, which helps clients maximize benefits of Amazon's cloud.
( Michael Hinkelman/Daily News Staff )
Khushboo Shah is Founder & CEO of Cloudamize, which helps clients maximize benefits of Amazon's cloud. ( Michael Hinkelman/Daily News Staff )Read more

KHUSHBOO SHAH, 36, of Franklintown, is founder and CEO of Cloudamize, a startup at 17th and Market streets in Center City that helps clients navigate Amazon Web Services. Cloudamize, which benefited from the Philly-based DreamIt Ventures accelerator program that helps startups get to market fast, recently got $1.2 million in seed funding to hire developers and sales personnel. Shah, a native of India, has a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California and worked for startups in Silicon Valley and in Princeton, N.J.

Q: What does Cloudamize do?

A: We help companies that use Amazon Web Services [AWS] optimize their performance on the cloud. We have a tool that enables our clients to understand and leverage all the benefits of the cloud by reducing costs, increasing performance and saving time when using the cloud.

Q: How'd you get into DreamIt?

A: By the beginning of 2012, I had built a prototype of our tool, I had done customer validation, and when we had some money - about $150,000 from friends and family - we used it to develop the prototype. We had a few customers using the product. [DreamIt] called us a day after the interview. We did a [test] and program while we were in the accelerator.

Q: How much do services cost?

A: We charge a fixed monthly fee for services, and typically our customers have 40 percent savings on their Amazon bill. If it's less than $5,000 you're spending on AWS, it would be $100 a month. Our sweet spot is the customer who pays us about $10,000 a month. But it depends on how much AWS you use and what type of services you're using. Generally, the fixed rate is less than 5 percent of what they spend per month on AWS.

Q: What is the opportunity here? Why bet on Cloudamize?

A: The public and private cloud market is expected to be $40 billion by 2018. The public cloud market is $6 billion. Since people have been moving to cloud computing, they don't have all the tools they need to get all the benefits from [the cloud]. Cloudamize helps leverage those benefits.

Q: What distinguishes you from competitors?

A: We are the only ones doing deep analysis of the data and recommending direct actions to increase efficiency.

Q: How many employees do you have?

A: Twelve.

Q: What about in a year?

A: We'll probably at least double our workforce.

Q: What are the biggest challenges you face going forward?

A: Hiring the right talent, making existing customers happy and helping them optimize, and continuing to develop technology that customers want.

Q: How big a business is this?

A: We don't disclose our revenue, but we're less than $1 million in revenue for the year.

Online: ph.ly/YourBusiness