You publish software that has been installed at your customers' sites for years. The model works — but renewals are stagnating, tenders demand SaaS, and a cloud competitor has just won one of your accounts. WakaStart moves you to SaaS without abandoning your existing customers.
What's happening in your market
The perpetual licence installed at the customer's site has proven itself for 20 years. But for the past 3 years, renewal cycles have been lengthening, tenders increasingly demand cloud SaaS, and your cloud-native competitors are gaining ground. This isn't a question of product quality — it's a question of distribution model.
What you're experiencing with the current model
What WakaStart enables you to do
The WakaStart response
Every customer has their own constraints — regulatory, contractual, cultural. WakaStart delivers an architecture that supports all three modes simultaneously. You choose the mode for each customer. The codebase, meanwhile, stays unique.
Shared cloud SaaS
For your new customers and those who accept cloud migration.
Dedicated cloud SaaS
For your mid-market and large enterprise customers who require physical isolation.
On-premise runtime
For your highly regulated customers who cannot go to the cloud.
Real customer case
Documalis is a B2B software publisher offering an electronic document management, signature and invoicing solution. Their legacy architecture — built for speed to market — no longer met the new requirements imposed by NIS2 nor the growing compliance and traceability demands of their large enterprise customers.
The challenge for Documalis was twofold: modernise an architecture that had become a commercial obstacle, and do so without disrupting their customers in production. The NIS2 directive — now fully applicable — imposed traceability, incident management and access segregation requirements that their legacy codebase could not meet without a deep rewrite. WakaStart carried out the complete cognitive reverse engineering of the solution, rebuilt the architecture on the Cybercoding framework — native multi-tenancy, compliant audit logs, secrets management via Vault, SAST/DAST pipeline — and delivered ISO 27001-ready SaaS that meets the strictest requirements of their B2B customers. The transition took place with total service continuity.
"WakaStart enabled us to completely reinvent the Documalis solution, whose ageing architecture no longer met the new requirements imposed by the NIS2 directive."
How it works
We analyse your existing code. You know exactly what it costs and how long it takes.
Our Lead Dev reads your on-premise codebase. Within 48 hours: technical debt mapping, identification of reusable building blocks, modular migration plan with fixed-price budget and guaranteed timeline. You sign nothing without a precise figure in hand.
Free · 48 hours · Zero commitmentYour software is rebuilt on the Cybercoding architecture. Your current customers see nothing.
The AI analyses every functional module of your on-premise solution — even without documentation. It produces the complete specifications and regenerates your software on a cloud-native architecture: native multi-tenancy, Keycloak IAM, Vault secrets, SAST/DAST pipeline. Your on-premise version keeps running at your customers' sites throughout this phase.
On-premise version maintained · 1-to-1 testing · Zero regressionEach customer migrates on their own schedule. No one is forced, no one is abandoned.
You offer the cloud SaaS version to new customers and those up for renewal. Those who don't want to migrate stay on their on-premise installation or switch to on-premise Runtime mode — same codebase, deployed locally at their site. Demanding customers (defence, healthcare, banking) benefit from the hybrid air-gap mode.
3 coexisting modes · Single codebase · No customer forcedFrom perpetual licence to SaaS MRR. Your company's valuation changes dimension.
Every cloud customer becomes a monthly or annual subscription. Your recurring revenue progressively replaces licence billing spikes. A SaaS publisher is valued at 5 to 10× ARR by investors — versus 1 to 2× for a licence publisher. Migration isn't just a technical decision: it's a strategic valuation decision.
SaaS MRR · Valuation ×3 to ×5 · Predictable revenueFor your most sensitive customers
Hybrid sovereignty architecture
AI forge
Design
DMZ / Air-Gap
Runtime
On-Premise
The code produced by the AI forge is cryptographically signed (post-quantum ML-DSA) before transit. On arrival, the signature is validated and the code is re-audited locally (offline SAST/DAST) before deployment. If even a single bit has been altered in transit, the package is rejected.
The contradiction resolved: AI in design, absolute sovereignty in execution.
Your defence, healthcare or banking customers cannot send their data to a third-party cloud — even a secure one. But they want to benefit from the power of AI to evolve their solution. WakaStart's hybrid sovereignty separates the design brain (our secure SaaS AI forge, hosted OVH France) from the execution muscle (the customer's local runtime). Zero data, zero authentication secret, zero line of code leaves the customer's infrastructure.
Post-quantum ML-DSA signature
Every application package is cryptographically signed. Any alteration in transit is detected and deployment is blocked.
Offline SAST/DAST on arrival
The local infrastructure independently re-scans the code, with no network connection. Supply chain integrity guaranteed.
Continuous GitOps alignment
If the local environment drifts from the validated configuration, the GitOps engine automatically corrects it. No unauthorised configuration drift.
What this changes in practice
The budget
Component
Cost
Cloud SaaS migration — fixed price
from €55,000 excl. VAT
ISO 27001-ready preparation option
+€10,000 excl. VAT
On-premise Runtime option (per customer)
On request
Run — OVH hosting + team
Monthly
Spread over time, no bank loan needed (36 months)
from €3,000/month
Starting from
€55,000 excl. VAT
What this budget unlocks that you didn't have before.
Access to every SaaS tender
73% of large enterprise tenders now require a cloud solution. You cannot respond to these opportunities with an on-premise solution.
Predictable MRR instead of licence spikes
Every SaaS customer generates a recurring monthly subscription. Your revenue becomes predictable, your cash flow smooths out, your valuation rises.
The end of on-site installations
No more on-site intervention to deploy, update or fix. A single codebase, a single Run team, seamless updates.
A valuation that follows
A licence publisher is valued at 1-2× revenue. A SaaS publisher is valued at 5-10× ARR. Migration isn't just a technical project.
Your questions
My on-premise customers refuse to move to the cloud. What happens to them?
They stay on on-premise Runtime mode — the same WakaStart codebase, deployed on their local infrastructure. You benefit from a single codebase to maintain for all your customers, regardless of their deployment method. Customers who refuse the cloud today can migrate to dedicated or shared mode tomorrow, with no further technical migration.
Our software has 15 years of code. How will you find your way around it?
Cognitive reverse engineering is designed precisely for this. Our AI agents analyse the source code, interfaces and flows — even without documentation, even with COBOL or VB.NET. They rebuild the real functional specifications of your software. Your team then validates that the understanding is accurate. It's an opportunity to redocument a product that no one fully understood any more.
Can we migrate module by module rather than all at once?
Yes, this is often the best approach for complex software. During the free audit, we identify the modules with the highest commercial impact (those blocking deals or generating the most support load) and start with them. The other modules follow progressively. This approach reduces risk and generates SaaS MRR from the first few weeks.
Our customers have extremely sensitive data. Is the cloud mode really secure?
WakaStart's infrastructure is 100% hosted in France (OVH), with physical and logical segregation between each tenant, AES-256 encryption at rest and in transit, and native NIS2 compliance. For customers who cannot accept the cloud even when secure, on-premise Runtime mode or hybrid air-gap mode solves the constraint without giving up the benefits of modernisation.
What is the impact on our internal technical team?
Your team takes part in the reverse engineering phase — their product knowledge is essential. After migration, they upskill in Nest.js, Kubernetes and DevSecOps practices. The time freed up by removing on-site interventions at customer sites is reinvested in product value. Support load decreases structurally with the centralisation of maintenance.
Start with the free audit — our free audit of your existing codebase in 48 hours. You know exactly what it costs, how long it takes, and which customers migrate first. No commitment.