London, UK – 4th March 2025 – James Smith, the award-winning tech entrepreneur and former CEO & Co-Founder of DevOpsGroup, today announced the launch of Critical Cloud (www.criticalcloud.ai), a next-generation cloud support company designed to empower tech-led SMBs with AI-enhanced, expert-led cloud operations.
Launching during Wales Week London 2025, an annual showcase of Welsh innovation and business excellence, Critical Cloud is built for tech-driven SMBs and scale-ups that already have world-class cloud engineers but need additional capacity, operational expertise, and real-time cloud support to scale effectively.
By combining engineer-led expertise with intelligent automation, Critical Cloud delivers seamless, transparent, and proactive cloud support, helping tech-led SMBs maximise uptime, optimise costs, and drive operational efficiency, without vendor lock-in or unnecessary complexity.
A New Model for Tech-Led SMBs: Augmenting, Not Replacing, Expert Teams
The cloud managed services industry has long underserved tech-led SMBs, companies that are cloud-native, fast-growing, and led by expert engineers. Traditional Managed Service Providers (MSPs) often lack deep cloud knowledge, impose rigid contracts, and fail to provide meaningful value beyond basic managed services.
Critical Cloud is different. It doesn’t try to “manage” cloud environments for tech teams that already know what they’re doing. Instead, it augments and enhances their capabilities, helping them:
- Run 24/7 operations without burning out – Tech-led SMBs are great at building and deploying, but maintaining 24/7 incident response and ensuring around-the-clock reliability is a challenge. Critical Cloud provides real-time incident management and proactive cloud operations.
- Access deep CloudOps expertise – While tech teams excel at implementation, many scale-ups lack dedicated CloudOps specialists for advanced monitoring, dashboards, AIOps, and cost-optimised operations. Critical Cloud fills this gap with deep operational experience.
- Stay ahead of the cloud’s rapid evolution – The cloud landscape moves fast, and even the best teams struggle to keep up with the latest architectures, optimisations, and best practices. Critical Cloud provides cutting-edge advisory services to ensure tech-led SMBs can scale efficiently without adding unnecessary complexity.
From DevOpsGroup to Critical Cloud: James Smith’s Vision for the Future
Smith is no stranger to disruption. As Founder & former CEO of DevOpsGroup, a cloud consultancy that scaled into tens-of-millions in revenue, he’s well-versed in delivering cutting-edge cloud solutions to tech-led businesses. He built a company that worked closely with AWS and Microsoft Azure and under his leadership, DevOpsGroup became one of Wales’ fastest-growing tech companies, leading to its acquisition in 2021.
Now, he’s bringing that same passion for innovation to Critical Cloud; this time, with a laser focus on helping tech-led SMBs and scale-ups overcome their biggest cloud challenges while staying agile and efficient.
Why Critical Cloud? A Purpose-Built Solution for Tech-Led SMBs
Unlike legacy MSPs, Critical Cloud operates as a true extension of in-house tech teams acting as a co-pilot who provides AI-driven insights, real-time support, and deep operational expertise.
How Critical Cloud Stands Out
- Your Cloud, Your Rules – SMBs retain full control of their cloud environments. No hidden fees, no vendor lock-in, just pure operational excellence.
- Augmented Intelligence Model (AIM) – AI-driven insights enhance incident response, proactive engineering, and cost optimisation—boosting engineering teams without replacing them.
- Designed for Modern Cloud Architectures – Full support for multi-cloud, hybrid, and PaaS environments, including emerging platforms like Heroku, Render, and Fly.io.
Official Launch at Wales Week London
To mark its official launch, Critical Cloud will debut at Wales Week London 2025, connecting with the UK’s leading tech businesses and showcasing its AI-powered, engineer-led cloud support model.
“Tech-led SMBs don’t need another MSP. They need a partner who understands the challenges of running cloud-native operations at scale,” said James Smith.“ Critical Cloud is that partner. We help teams stay operational 24/7, optimise cloud costs, and apply the latest best practices, so they can focus on what they do best: building and innovating.”
For more information, visit www.criticalcloud.ai or follow Critical Cloud on LinkedIn.
Media Contact
Press Team, Critical Cloud
Email: press@criticalcloud.ai
