Apttus is a quote-to-cash platform that was built on Salesforce’s secure enterprise cloud. Rumor had it that Apttus was looking to go public within the next couple of years, but it has been announced that private equity firm Thoma Bravo is actually buying a major stake in the company instead. The deal value was undisclosed, but more information is expected to be revealed once it officially closes.
Prior to Thoma Bravo’s majority stake deal, Apttus had raised $404 million in funding since 2006. Some of Apttus’ investors include Salesforce Ventures, PremjiInvest, IBM Ventures, ICONIQ Capital, Gulf Islamic Investments, Kuwait Investment Authority, and K1 Investment Management. Thoma Bravo is also known for acquiring a number of other enterprise software companies such as Solar Winds, Qlik, and Sailpoint.
“Apttus was founded to help enterprises manage revenue and commercial relationships, and passionately delivering that value to our customers has made us the de facto selection and industry gold standard for large enterprises,” said Apttus co-founder, president, and chief solutions architect Neehar Giri in a statement. “Apttus’ innovation is directly responsible for the creation and advancement of the Middle Office, holistically addressing the space between CRM and ERP for hundreds of customers. Our partnership with Thoma Bravo will allow Apttus to accelerate growth, scale to new heights, and capitalize on an enormous market opportunity.”
Apttus’ co-founder, CEO, and chairman Kirk Krappe was quoted as saying that the company was planning to go public in 2016 and said that the company would be open to an acquisition if Salesforce was interested. But Krappe said that the company was growing 100% year-on-year regardless as to whether an acquisition offer came up.
Later that year, Apttus expanded its operations so that its platform started supporting Microsoft Dynamics as well. This made Apttus less dependent on the Salesforce ecosystem.
Some of Apttus’ current customers include Adobe, AppNexus, Aramark, Citrix, DocuSign, Lenovo, LinkedIn, New Relic, PayPal, Rogers, Tata, and Twilio.
