Prepare a combination of automation and human analysts to address IT issues

Matt Peters has spent more than a decade working for cybersecurity vendors. He was a team leader at Check Point, rose through the corporate ladder to VP of global operations at FireEye, and spent more than four years at Expel, a managed detection and response company, as chief product officer.

Peters says a surprisingly common thread ran through all of these experiences: IT teams were frustrated because technology expectations rarely matched reality.

Organizations want more of their IT departments. According to one survey, nearly one-third of corporate banking employees receive a response from IT within an hour. About the same percentage expect help with any new tool their employer needs them to learn.

In these challenges, Peter saw an opportunity. Together with Peter Silberman and Mase Issa, both ex-Expel colleagues, Peters founded Fixify, an IT help platform with an automation twist.

Fixify connects to existing IT ticketing systems, such as Jira and ServiceNow, to automatically categorize tickets and identify “bottlenecks.” Using AI, Fixify tries to identify the root causes of problems, then recruits IT analysts who use them to diagnose and solve problems.

“Fixify is designed for tech-centric organizations between 100 and 2,000 employees who care about providing a high-quality IT help desk experience, but can’t afford to invest in the staff and technology stack required,” Peters said. “We charge an annual fee based on the number of employees the customer has. For a company with 750 employees the cost would be $9,000 per month, or about the cost of a full-time help desk analyst.”

Peters says Fixify uses a sentiment analysis tool to gauge the tone and urgency of incoming requests. This not only helps with triage, he says, but 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 see when more attention is needed,” added Peters.

As analysts work on tickets, Fixify customers – and their IT staff – can help if they choose. Editing automatically updates ticket conditions to ensure stakeholders stay on the same page.

From the Fixify admin dashboard, customers can specify which categories of tickets they want reviewers to prioritize. They can also view performance metrics (e.g. time to resolution) and suggestions for addressing issues quickly, as well as file requests to remove sensitive information from the Fixify platform. (By default, Fixify keeps data for 12 months under “customer requirements and contractual obligations.”)

“Our aim is to handle about three-quarters of the customer’s ticket volume from start to finish – not just to reroute them,” he continued. “Our AI helps IT analysts by suggesting next steps based on each customer’s specific processes. They also identify the appropriate tools for each job by analyzing the context of the ticket and playbook instructions.”

IT teams have shown a willingness to embrace automation as they find themselves stretched and lean. In Digitate’s December 2023 survey, 90% of IT decision makers said they plan to implement more automation, especially in functions such as finance and customer support, in the next 12 months.

The idea of ​​high-tech IT outsourcing is not new. Several startups are experimenting with the idea, including Primo (with a focus on hardware), Fleet (with curved hardware), and Wizeline.

But there is a lot of money in the category. Avasant Research’s 2023 IT Outsourcing Statistics survey found that organizations increased their annual IT outsourcing budgets by 8.1% last year. Deloitte predicted that total IT spending will reach $519 billion by 2023 – a 22% increase from 2019.

Investors seem taken with Fixify’s automation angle — perhaps because of automation’s ability to increase productivity while reducing overhead.

This month, Fixify closed a $25 million Series A round led by Costanoa Ventures, Decibel Partners, and Paladin Capital Group with participation from Scale Venture Partners. Murad Yesayan, managing director at Paladin, plans to join Fixify’s board as part of the deal.

“The broader technological downturn has created fewer opportunities for us,” Peters said. “This series of investments provides financing for the foreseeable future – and certainly because of the expected economic development predicted by many economists.”

Arlington, Virginia-based Fixify, which launched in 2023, has raised $32 million to date. The company that focuses on it in the near term is increasing its 41 employees and the number of customers, which currently stands at 15 companies.