Primo is the IT tool for companies that are too small for an IT manager

Meet Primo, a French startup that recently raised a $3.4 million funding round to build a software-as-a-service product that handles the IT needs of small and medium companies. Primo keeps track of your fleet of devices and can then help you manage it without a dedicated IT manager.

Headline and Global Founders Capital are leading the funding round, with several business angels also participating, such as Arthur Waller, Romain Niccoli, Ilana Elbaz, Josef Bovet, Matthieu Birach and Romain Libeau.

Small companies usually don’t have a dedicated IT team. They tend to hire their first IT manager when they reach 200 or 300 employees. Before that, it’s a mess. Some people in the team are “pretty good with computers” and can fix minor issues. For heavy-duty tasks, companies often rely on outsourced IT.

When there’s a new hire, someone from the HR or admin teams will make sure that the new employee has everything they need to get started. It often involves ordering a new computer, adding a reference number to a spreadsheet, emailing the outsourced IT person so that they can grant access to internal tools, etc.

“The complexity of IT has completely changed — it has become operational. When someone joins the team, there are 35 tasks to do,” Primo co-founder and CEO Martin Pannier told me. It’s a time-consuming process and chances are the task list is not even up to date.

An IT companion
Primo wants to be the companion SaaS for small companies. It currently has four different modules that should speed up and rationalize IT tasks.

“Everyone has become an accidental IT manager. It has a lot of advantages. One, it’s free. Two, it’s super agile and responsive,” Pannier said.