March 15, 2012 : New Funding Will Fuel Appirio's International Expansion, Investments in Technology and Crowdsourcing Platform For Cloud Development
San Mateo, Calif. – March 15, 2012 – Appirio, a technology-enabled services provider that helps enterprises power their business with the cloud, today announced that it has closed $60 million in Series D funding led by global growth investor General Atlantic, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital and GGV Capital. Appirio plans to use the funds for investment and M&A to support global expansion of its consulting practice areas, as well as to build out the company's enabling cloud technology and acceleration of its successful crowdsourcing development platform – CloudSpokes.
The financing follows a banner year of growth for Appirio. In 2011 alone, Appirio increased year-over-year revenue by over 80 percent, expanded into Europe with the acquisition of Saaspoint and developed the Appirio Services Platform – an integrated set of applications, assets and development capacity that supports enterprise cloud development. Additionally, the company introduced CloudSpokes – a crowdsourcing community for cloud development that has already attracted 35,000+ developers."Appirio is defining what a next-generation technology services provider will be in the era dominated by cloud solutions," said Gary M. Reiner, operating partner, General Atlantic and former CIO, General Electric. "The company's unique combination of technology and crowdsourcing – along with their cloud focus and experienced team – have the potential to completely disrupt the $793 billion worldwide Global Systems Integrator market."
Brett B. Rochkind, managing director, General Atlantic, commented, "Our experience in helping cloud companies become global leaders led us to observe and admire what Appirio has done during the last several years. We look forward to partnering with the management team to scale their success and make Appirio the pre-eminent cloud solutions provider to the world's largest and fastest growing companies."
Since the company was established in 2006, Appirio has worked on some of salesforce.com, Google and Workday's largest, most complex, global customers, including those at BMC Software, Japan Post, Medtronic, Flextronics, Twitter, Merkle and NetApp. The Appirio team has moved more than 1.5 million users to the public cloud to date and has offices in the U.S., Japan, Singapore and the U.K. with crowdsourced developers in 65+ countries.
"Enterprises are demanding to work with a trusted, agile cloud advisor and we fill that role," said Chris Barbin, CEO, Appirio. "Just as legacy software providers have struggled to add cloud to their legacy businesses, the global system integrators, including Accenture and Deloitte, will be challenged to overcome their on-premise dependency and adapt to the rapidly changing market and customer demands related to the cloud."
"Twitter is redefining an industry and wants to work with service providers that are agile enough to evolve and define our business processes," said Adam Bain, president of global revenue, Twitter. "Appirio has become a trusted adviser and partner, helping us scale our operations and execute solutions as quickly as we can think of them."
Brett Rochkind and Gary Reiner led GA's investment in Appirio and will be actively involved with Appirio. Mr. Rochkind heads General Atlantic's Palo Alto office and is co-head of its Internet & Technology sector with global experience in the U.S., Latin America and Asia. Gary Reiner will join Appirio's board of directors immediately. Mr. Reiner is an operating partner at General Atlantic and currently serves on the boards of HP and Genpact. Mr. Reiner previously served as senior vice president and CIO of GE, where he led M&A, sourcing, IT, operations and quality for the company. General Atlantic is a global investor in more than 60 growth companies including Alibaba Group, Bazaarvoice, ServiceSource, Facebook, Dice, Peixe Urbano, Privalia, Renren and Gilt.
About AppirioAppirio accelerates the cloud-powered business, helping enterprises achieve real results from cloud applications and platforms like salesforce.com, Google and Workday. Appirio has worked with more than 300 enterprise customers including organizations like City of Los Angeles, Facebook, Flextronics, Home Depot, International Hotels Group, Japan Post Network, Ltd., L'Oreal, NetApp, NYU, Starbucks, Thomson Reuters and VMware. Appirio's technology-enabled professional services are supported by a team of nearly 500 cloud experts and CloudSpokes, a 35,000+ person-strong global cloud developer community. The company's expertise and innovative brokerage technology have been recognized by organizations such as the World Economic Forum, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, InformationWeek, Gartner, and IDC. Appirio has offices in the U.S., Europe and Japan, and is backed by Sequoia Capital, GGV Capital and General Atlantic.
About General AtlanticGeneral Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for growth companies. GA combines a collaborative global approach, sector specific expertise, a long-term investment horizon and a deep understanding of growth drivers to partner with great management and build exceptional businesses worldwide. Established in 1980, GA manages approximately $17 billion in capital and has more than 75 investment professionals based in Greenwich, New York, Palo Alto, London, Düsseldorf, Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, Mumbai and São Paulo. For further information and a listing of GA's public and private portfolio companies see www.generalatlantic.com.