Cloud service commerce provider AppDirect raises $140M

Steven Loeb · October 7, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/408e

AppDirect now reaches a quarter of all small businesses worldwide through its partners

Cloud service commerce company AppDirect has been quietly making a name for itself as the go-to solution for enterprise companies to find, buy and manage cloud service tools they need.

The company has been a big hit customers, but also with investors, and it just announced that it has raised another $140 million in funding.

The round was led by an investment fund advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, with participation from all existing institutional investors, including Foundry Group, iNovia Capital, Mithril Capital Management, StarVest Partners, and Stingray Digital.

This funding comes only eight months after AppDirect last took money, a $50 million round in February. Since its founding in 2009, AppDirect has raised a total of $245 million.

The San Francisco-based AppDirect offers tools, such as single sign-on, which give employers a single set of credentials that allow end users to access and manage the same application across Web and mobile versions.

Its platform helps clients to create one ecosystem for developers, providers and consumers. The company works with channel partners, such as large telecommunications companies, hosting providers and retailers, including Comcast, Deutsche Telecom, Rackspace and Staples. It then white labels app stores for them to offer apps to their business customers.

For example, a business will go to Staples and, instead of buying Microsoft or Google apps on the shelf, will be able to select the apps they need, then offer them to employees to manage them all with a single password. Ultimately, this saves businesses both time and money, in that they will often get a discount, as it is cheaper to buy apps as part of a bundle.

The company has been growing fast. AppDirect reaching approximately a quarter of all small businesses worldwide through partners such as Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, Telstra, ADP, and FICO. In addition, it has over one million paid business subscribers, a nearly 300 percent increase year over year.

AppDirect has also rapidly scaled its team, doubling its headcount to more than 350 employees over the last year. It has offices in San Francisco, Sydney, Munich, Montreal, Ottawa, Boulder, London, Paris, Stockholm, Singapore, and Tokyo.

It has customers across more than 25 countries, including rapidly expanding presence in Europe and Asia. The company says it will use the funding to continue that international expansion.

AppDirect will continue to build out its platform, which consists of catalog management, identity management, subscription billing and data management, in order to help businesses increase their productivity.

This funding comes less than a month after AppDirect announced its fourth acquisition, AppCarousel, a provider of app management platforms for connected cars and fleets, smartphones, smart screens, tablets, and other connected devices.

Steven Loeb

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Where business can find, buy and manage web-based applications.

Our Business Application Network allows businesses to easily find the perfect software solution for their needs through our application marketplaces. Businesses can now benefit from one bill for all their applications and one portal to manage and use them. This allows greater integration, ease of use and security for application management.

The Story

We founded AppDirect in the summer of 2009 with a simple mission: improve the web-based enterprise experience. Our mission and enthusiasm attracted a leading team with over 55 years of collective on-demand e-commerce and software experience from HP, Oracle, Google, VMware, and Salesforce. In our first year, AppDirect grew into one of the largest independent software distribution channels through channel partners that share our vision and passion for web-based products.

Web-based software is better.

Web-based technology overcomes the barriers to entry that software companies face in the traditional packaged software market. This makes the software industry more competitive and businesses can now benefit from a greater range of products and services. It liberalizes software by allowing small businesses to access and afford enterprise grade solutions.

We make web-based software even better.

AppDirect promotes the ease of use, security and reach of web-based applications. Despite the growth in web-based applications over the past few years it remains difficult to find solutions and integrate them for unified management and use. We address this problem with our Application Marketplace, which makes it much easier for businesses to find and compare solutions. We also allow businesses to manage and use web-based software applications in a unified environment through our Business Application Manager.