and marketing—over the next few months. “We will be at 115 by the end of year. We are just seeing phenomenal growth,” he says. “We may grow even faster—but it depends on how fast we can hire.”
Despite the fact that Apptio’s VC rounds continue to increase, Gupta says he doesn’t see the company pursuing any more outside investments in the near future.
“We believe that this money is all the money we should need to really substantially grow the business at a faster rate. So for now we’re not really anticipating future rounds,” he says. “We think we are extremely well capitalized at this stage to really take advantage of these market opportunities. We just wanted to have enough capital to really expand our business at a rapid rate. Even if we don’t dip into this money at all, we wanted to have this money at our disposal. We think that this should be the last round from a financing perspective, but never say never.” And though Gupta did not mention any plans to pursue a public offering, Seattle Times reporter Brier Dudley suggests that this latest round could position the company for an IPO.
Gupta also didn’t seem too concerned about Apptio’s competition. While he admits “the market is heating up,” he believes the company has an advantage compared to others out there, not surprisingly. And while more companies are jumping into IT management, Gupta says, “Ninety percent of our deals still don’t have any competition.” The reasoning? Gupta says Apptio is unique in the way that it integrates deeply with financial and operational IT data.
And while a couple of big companies, like BMC Software and Hewlett-Packard, are starting to offer some services in the IT business management space, Gupta says, “it’s like an apples and oranges comparison”—and one that’s also helping to get the word out for Apptio.
“That’s actually helping us because they’re educating the market that this is a need,” he says. “But we’re light-years ahead—the big guys aren’t really innovators, they manage existing markets.”
Some of the big-name brands currently on Apptio’s client list include Alaska Airlines, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BNP Paribas, Cisco, EMD Chemical, Expedia, Hallmark, JPMorgan Chase, Saint Luke’s Health System, Starbucks, and Volkswagen Credit. And Gupta sees an opportunity to reach countless more markets, both small and large.
“We believe every CIO, whether you’re a big company or a small company, is really going to need a system like Apptio to manage the business of costs,” Gupta says. “We are sitting on a multi-billion market opportunity.”
