AppDirect Raises $140 Million to Power the Global Cloud Service Economy

San Francisco, CA – October 7, 2015 – AppDirect, the leader in cloud service commerce, announced today during the AppDirect Partner Summit that it has raised $140 million in funding 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. Since its founding in 2009, AppDirect has raised a total of $245 million.

Explosive Growth Drives Momentum and Global Reach

The new investment validates AppDirect’s position as the standard for selling and managing cloud services. Over the past 12 months, the company has experienced explosive growth. It now powers the largest network of cloud service marketplaces, reaching approximately a quarter of all small businesses worldwide through partners such as Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, Telstra, ADP, and FICO. In addition, AppDirect has over one million paid business subscribers, a nearly 300 percent increase year over year.

The company has also rapidly scaled its global team. Over the past year, AppDirect has doubled its headcount to more than 350 team members located around the world in San Francisco, Sydney, Munich, Montreal, Ottawa, Boulder, London, Paris, Stockholm, Singapore, and Tokyo. With its global team, AppDirect can serve its growing customer base across more than 25 countries, including rapidly expanding presence in Europe and Asia.

Empowering Businesses to Sell Cloud Services Through Every Channel

Today, AppDirect’s customer-base represents Fortune 500 companies offering cloud services to small businesses. The recently announced Monetization Suite extends AppDirect’s capabilities to software vendors and Value Added Resellers (VARs) with services such as subscription billing, third-party distribution, reseller management, and marketplaces, enabling businesses to sell cloud software through all channels. Moreover, AppDirect recently announced its fourth acquisition, AppCarousel, an app platform which will allow AppDirect to help businesses access applications across all devices.

Making Cloud Software Accessible for All Markets

With the new capital, AppDirect will continue to invest in capabilities that further the vision of making it easy for businesses to seamlessly manage multiple applications and services. AppDirect plans to innovate on its core platform—which consists of catalog management, identity management, subscription billing and data management—to help businesses increase productivity and drive IT efficiency.

“When we started the business in a San Francisco apartment more than five years ago, Nicolas Desmarais and I had the vision of helping businesses find, buy, and manage the technology they need to thrive,” said AppDirect President and Co-CEO Daniel Saks. “This new round of funding validates our vision and traction in the market, and will allow us to put cloud services in the hands of millions more businesses through local, trusted providers. We look forward to helping even more companies of all sizes and stages of growth sell and manage their own SaaS applications.”

“The AppDirect team has taken an ‘under the radar’ approach that has enabled it to quietly build one of the fastest-growing businesses in the Bay Area,” said Larry Unrein, Portfolio Manager and Head of the Private Equity Group at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. “We’ve been interested in partnering with the team for some time, and in our view, AppDirect’s substantial growth, proven ability to help businesses create channels to sell and manage cloud services, and significant market opportunity make it a highly attractive investment. We’re proud and excited to partner with the team as it becomes an engine behind cloud service monetization and management across the world.”

About AppDirect

AppDirect is the cloud service commerce leader making software and products accessible globally. The AppDirect cloud service commerce platform unites providers, developers and consumers of cloud services into a single ecosystem. This makes it easy for businesses to find, buy, manage and monitor cloud services from a central location and delivers new opportunities to distribute, sell, and market cloud services. AppDirect-powered marketplaces, billing and distribution, and reselling services help providers – including Telstra, ADP, Samsung, Deutsche Telekom and others – connect millions of businesses to solutions from Microsoft, Google, Box and more. AppDirect is headquartered in San Francisco with global offices.

About J.P. Morgan Asset Management

J.P. Morgan Asset Management, with assets under management of $1.8 trillion, is a global leader in investment management. J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s clients include institutions, retail investors and high net worth individuals in every major market throughout the world. J.P. Morgan Asset Management offers global investment management in equities, fixed income, real estate, hedge funds, private equity and liquidity. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), the parent company of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, is a leading global asset management firm with assets of approximately $2.4 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries. Information about JPMorgan Chase & Co. is available at www.jpmorganchase.com.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management is the marketing name for the asset management businesses of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates worldwide.

AppDirect Media Contact

Victor White
victor.white@appdirect.com
415.852.3945