Looks like those predictions about a boom in IT infrastructure companies might not just be idle talk. Apptio, a Bellevue, WA provider of IT management software for large companies, has raised another $50 million in financing to grow its worldwide footprint—a notable sum of cash for a Seattle-area tech company.
The financing will help Apptio with its ambitious plans to add more than 100 people to its roster this year and double sales bookings over the next couple of years, says Kurt Shintaffer, the company’s CFO and co-founder. CEO and co-founder Sunny Gupta has previously said that Apptio had nearly $60 million in sales bookings last year.
The new money also allows Apptio to remain independent and on a path to possibly being a publicly traded firm some day—Gupta has long talked about a mission of growing Apptio into another cornerstone of the region’s tech industry.
“When we did a round like this, it was a clear signal to the management team and anyone else that cared to listen that we were doubling down on the company as a long-term player,” Shintaffer says. There’s no timeline in mind for a possible IPO, but “clearly, this takes any financing pressures off the company.”
Apptio’s software-as-a-service offering helps large companies simplify the way they pay for and manage IT assets. The software shows the total cost of IT services through what Apptio calls an interactive “Bill of IT,” and combines elements of planning, budgeting, and forecasting directly into the system.
On a high level, Shintaffer compares Apptio’s software to customer relationship management systems that help a sales team manage its work, or enterprise resource planning software that can keep manufacturers on track.
The ability to keep several disparate elements of an IT system on one page could become increasingly welcome to IT managers, with cloud computing services continuing to remake the fundamental building blocks of corporate computing.
Of course, that’s the bet Apptio’s investors are making. The Series D round announced Thursday was led by T. Rowe Price, with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and Shasta Ventures.
Shintaffer says that when Apptio set out to raise the new round, it still had about half of its previous $41 million in venture funding in the bank.
“We’ve been a very capital-efficient business from the start,” Shintaffer says. “But when you identify a market opportunity that is as great as this, you want to go after that with an ample war chest. And that’s what we’ve done.”
