Convesio

An estimated 75 million websites use a content management system called WordPress. That’s nearly one-third of the entire Internet.

Convesio is the first platform-as-a-service designed specifically to help build and manage scalable, secure WordPress websites.

Companies rely on “web hosting” to put their businesses online. Web hosting is a huge market. By 2020, it’s expected to surpass $75 billion.

The problem is, millions of WordPress websites are hosted on shared, dedicated servers that:

• Lack the ability to scale.

• Are hard to support.

• And have a single point of failure — in other words, if the single point goes down, the entire website goes down.

For website agencies, managing clients’ websites can be a challenge. Clients often report issues such as inconsistent site load time, performance issues, an inability to scale their website, and poor security (WordPress is the CMS hacked most often).

And for many website developers, building their own infrastructure in the “cloud” isn’t an option. The effort, knowledge, and capital required to get these projects off the ground is too much.

Convesio provides a solution by enabling website agencies to harness the power of cloud providers like Amazon, without the headaches.

The platform is a combination of open source software and proprietary code. Proprietary components include a custom caching layer, file system mounts, and a unique firewall security system.

Convesio’s platform features a centralized dashboard for managing all clients in one space, and does not rely on a single point of failure. All points of failure are connected to automated backups.

Furthermore, the company’s platform differs from traditional web hosting agencies by scaling “out” instead of “up.”

You see, traditional web hosts scale “up” (in other words, they buy more powerful servers when they need more resources). Convesio, in contrast, scales “out” by deploying new resources as needed, and then using automatic load balancing to split the increased web traffic between those resources.

For example, consider what happens when a client’s website becomes extremely popular, or “goes viral.”

With a traditional hosting agency, the client is relying on a single powerful server to deliver all of its site content during the traffic surge. If that single point of failure goes down, the entire site goes down.

With Convesio, as traffic increases, the platform automatically deploys new resources and splits the traffic between them. This means greater performance and high availability because there’s no single point of failure. Then, once traffic drops off, Convesio can scale back, saving the client unnecessary costs.

Convesio has launched a beta version of its platform, and hosts 500 websites that receive more than 90 million visitors each month.

The beta version costs $10 per month, while other hosting services can cost as much as $1,400 per month. The company projects to charge clients $25 per month for the fully launched product.

Convesio estimates a customer acquisition cost of $1,500 and a customer lifetime value of $28,000.

Convesio will initially market its software through WordPress channels, and then through various WordCamps around the world. These are conferences hosted by WordPress that include networking opportunities for WordPress users. There are 115 WordCamps in more than 40 countries.

Moving forward, Convesio will offer free trials of its software, and then use a sales team to sell to web hosting agencies.

Team Background

Dyutiman Chakraborty - Co-Founder & Chief Architect

Dyutiman has 14 years of experience in the software industry.

He previously worked as a senior software engineering contractor, completing various projects including building mobile applications to solutions for enterprise clients. In addition, he was a senior software developer for Think Design, an architectural design company.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business from St. Xaviers College.

Thomas Fanelli - Co-Founder & CEO

Thomas has experience with multiple technology-related startups and helped one company go public.

Along with his role with Convesio, he is Chief Marketing Officer for Aptly, a customer relationship management platform that uses Artificial Intelligence to help property managers oversee their clients.

For more than three years, he was Vice President of Product Management for Deluxe Corporation (NYSE: DLX), a financial services company. In addition, he spent five years with RealPage, Inc., a computer software company where he worked as Vice President of Marketing Services.

Thomas was VP of Sales and Marketing for dESCO, a provider of service management software for field service companies. He also served in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer.

He studied at Barry University and Florida SouthWestern State College.

Elizabeth Bochner - Co-Founder & COO

Prior to starting Convesio, Elizabeth worked alongside co-worker Thomas Fanelli at Deluxe Corporation. During her time there, she was Director of Product Management Strategy and a project manager.

In addition, she worked at RealPage, serving as both Project Manager and Relationship Manager.

Co-Investors