Want to know how to raise a big round of venture funding in a recession? If you’re in the software business, talk to Sunny Gupta.
Gupta’s company, Bellevue, WA-based Apptio, is announcing a $14 million Series B financing round today. The round includes existing investors Madrona Venture Group and Greylock Partners, and also new investors Shasta Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz Fund. Apptio is not the only company Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have co-invested in with Madrona; they also bet on Seattle-based ExtraHop Networks in April.
The Apptio investment is a pretty big deal, given its size and the difficulty software startups everywhere are having in securing follow-up funding. Apptio previously raised $7 million from Madrona, Greylock, Ignition Partners, and others in November 2007. Today’s announcement is a huge vote of confidence from its lead investors—and it means Apptio will be able to ramp up its expansion and sales in a major way.
“This is a big milestone for us,” says Gupta, Apptio’s CEO, who previously founded iConclude (which was acquired by Opsware and then Hewlett-Packard in 2007). “Nineteen, 20 months in, we’re executing like crazy. We’ve really delivered on the vision. We’re starting to transform the way CIOs [chief information officers] manage the business of IT by helping them understand the cost of services.”
When last we checked on Apptio, the firm had announced a slew of new, high-profile corporate customers that it helps manage and optimize the costs of IT systems like computers, mobile devices, software packages, servers, and data centers. Apptio’s software, which it provides “on-demand” as a service, helps make companies’ IT costs more transparent, allowing CIOs to “run IT like a business,” Gupta says. “Our investors believe it’s a billion dollars-plus opportunity.”
Apptio has signed up about three dozen corporate customers, small and large, including Starbucks, Alaska Airlines, SumTotal, and NYK Logistics. Because of its strong customer traction, Gupta says, Apptio was able to raise “more money than we thought we really needed. We wanted to have
