Case Study: vFunction

An AI-driven, Architectural Observability and Automation Platform to manage technical debt and enable Continuous Application Modernization.

Background

Many of today’s enterprises rely on legacy Java applications to power their businesses, and face an urgent mandate to move to the cloud as quickly as possible in order to retain competitive market positioning, innovate their businesses and respond to unexpected events like COVID-19. Over time, these enterprises have amassed huge backlogs of 100’s and even 1,000’s of legacy monolithic Java applications to modernize, hampering business transformation initiatives and creating drag on IT departments. Manual modernization tools and projects are slow, costly and ineffective, and modernization strategies such as “lifting and shifting” and containerization without breaking into microservices yield limited benefits. Adding to the complexity, these enterprises often lack the resources and skills to modernize their enterprise applications.

That’s where vFunction comes in. vFunction eliminates the frustration and pressure of today’s cloud native modernization projects. vFunction enables technology leaders and developers to automatically modernize 1,000s of legacy apps, while removing manual processes and eliminating constraints like time, cost, risk, and limited skills.

vFunction hired Karbo Communications to launch the company from stealth and announce funding to boost awareness and accelerate the company’s go-to-market strategy. vFunction selected Karbo Communications due to the team’s expertise in SaaS, cloud and B2B technology markets, highly strategic approach to PR and content, proven track record of success building brand awareness, driving leads and growing sales, and communicating highly differentiated market positioning.

Objectives

Launch vFunction from stealth by unveiling the company, the product and technology, leadership, funding, and customer momentum to the market
Position vFunction as a differentiated and preferred solution for modernizing enterprise applications
Increase market awareness and company and executive thought leadership to fuel company growth

Execution

Karbo Communications partnered with vFunction to develop a strategic PR and communications strategy to introduce the company to the market and contribute to the achievement of the company’s business goals. In order to establish vFunction as a disruptive force in the market, Karbo Communications provided counsel on messaging to help further highlight market differentiation, executed an aggressive media and analyst outreach strategy to build and strengthen key relationships, partnered with vFunction on social media and website blog content, and pursued a thought leadership campaign to secure byline opportunities to continue momentum.

To further elevate brand awareness and credibility, Karbo Communications developed strategic thought leadership platforms and custom storylines for vFunctions’s C-suite executives, designed to amplify the company’s overarching brand narrative.

Karbo Communications has continued to drive various news announcements for vFunction since the company’s launch from stealth. When vFunction announced its second round of funding and second product, vFunction Assessment Hub, Karbo Communications worked side-by-side with the vFunction team in the months leading up to the announcements to counsel on messaging and recommend a media and analyst outreach strategy.

In June 2022, the agency worked with vFunction and research firm, Wakefield Research to execute a survey on why a majority of application modernization projects fail. The agency worked alongside the companies to brainstorm creative topic ideas based on the news landscape and develop strategic survey questions. The agency worked with vFunction to analyze the survey findings and tell a story that would be enticing to media, generate awareness, educate the market and support lead generation and sales activities for the company.

Results

Within the first year and a half of working together, Karbo Communications secured over 240 unique placements or media mentions, totaling over 400M impressions. Specifically, the agency increased earned media coverage for vFunction in top business, technology and developer publications including the Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, Fortune, Silicon Valley Business Journal, SiliconANGLE, DevOps.com, The New Stack and more.

During and after the launch to continue momentum, Karbo Communications has executed numerous thought leadership campaigns for its executives, securing contributed articles in developer publications such as DevOps.com, The New Stack, Container Journal, and more. vFunction continues to engage with influential analysts across top firms like Forrester Research, Gartner, Omdia, 451 Research, RedMonk and more. vFunction is regularly featured in analyst reports from firms like Omdia, 451 Research, Intellyx and RedMonk.

In 2021, vFunction was recognized by CRN as a Top Emerging Vendor, won the Intellyx Digital Innovators Award, selected as the winner of a Stratus Award for Cloud Computing in the Cloud Disruptor category, and named “a startup to watch” by Database Trends and Applications. In 2022, vFunction secured the Intellyx Digital Innovators award for the second year in a row, and was recognized as an Emerging Vendor by both CRN and prestigious tech analyst firm, Digital Enterprise Journal. In November 2022, vFunction was named a finalist for the 2022 DevOps Dozen awards in the Best New DevOps Tool/Service Provider category.

A sampling of media that have featured vFunction: