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AppDirect’s Capital Program Fortified With $100 Million Investment from CDPQ

Business Wire — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 20:04:09 +0000

Funding provides flexible capital for technology advisors to transform and scale their business while maintaining 100% ownership

AppDirect, the leading B2B subscription commerce platform in North America, announced it has secured USD 100 million [approximately CAD 136 million]¹ in funding from global investment group CDPQ. This new investment will support innovative financing options for technology advisors through the AppDirect Capital Invest program, allowing them to access flexible capital to transform and scale their business. Building upon the initial USD 80 million financing from CDPQ in 2021, this new investment increases the total program funding to USD 180 million.

In dynamic channel market, every technology advisor faces the decision to stay the course, seek capital to invest back into their business or consider whether the time is right to be acquired or acquire. The AppDirect Capital Invest program supports these endeavors by combining upfront, non-restrictive capital with the power of the AppDirect Marketplace, allowing technology advisors to use the capital to scale, innovate, retain top talent, or make outside investments while maintaining 100% ownership of their business. This new funding from CDPQ enables AppDirect to work with technology advisors on flexible capital solutions to meet their unique business needs.

“AppDirect is committed to providing our technology advisors with an unfair advantage. Our Invest program is purpose-built to empower our technology advisors,” said Emanuel Bertolin, Chief Revenue Officer at AppDirect. “To keep up with ever-changing market, technology merchants need fast access to capital to accelerate their growth. With AppDirect Capital, technology advisors can take advantage of innovative capital options to expand their business or invest in the future, which makes increasing access to this program all the more essential.”

“Since our initial financing in 2021, AppDirect has demonstrated their ability to accelerate the connectivity and competitiveness of today’s businesses,” said Marc Cormier, Executive Vice-President and Head of Fixed Income at CDPQ. “As part of our partnership, this repeat investment continues to facilitate the delivery of critical solutions for the digital economy, while generating stable returns for our clients.”

“AppDirect is dedicated to fueling innovation and growth for our advisor community,” said Nicolas Desmarais, Chairman and CEO at AppDirect. “CDPQ and AppDirect have an established track record of working together, and this new investment further solidifies both companies’ commitment to the growth and transformation of AppDirect channel partners and technology advisors.”

With this investment, AppDirect expects to continue bringing value to its technology advisors, like NXTSYS. “For the last five years, we’ve grown consistently between 22% to 30% year over year. Since we partnered with AppDirect Capital Invest, we jumped 50% in a single year in profit. Think about that: not 50% in revenue, but 50% in profit. Those kinds of numbers are phenomenal,” said David Wallace, Co-founder and President of NXTSYS. “With AppDirect as a partner, we knew we’d have the ability to drive growth. And once we learned that we’d maintain complete control of our business, it was a clear path forward for us.”

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AppDirect Announces Development of AI Marketplace, Empowering Organizations to Fully Leverage, Adopt, and Monetize AI

Business Wire — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 05:39:11 +0000

Marketplace platform and digital commerce leader develops solution with simple, intuitive interface that enables users to build custom AI bots

AppDirect, the world’s leading B2B subscription commerce platform, announced the development of its AppDirect AI Marketplace, an upcoming marketplace solution that allows technology providers and channel partners to easily create no-code personalized AI bots to enhance customer experiences and streamline operations. AppDirect’s AI Marketplace is designed to empower users to easily transform AI bot ideas into reality without needing any coding skills, while also offering a secure platform for sharing and effectively monetizing bots in various marketplaces.

With AppDirect’s simple, intuitive interface, users can build AI bots based on their choice of popular large language models, such as ChatGPT, Llama, Bard, or Cohere. By providing specific training data, including files, websites, and drives, users can program AI bots to focus on the work they need to accomplish. Technology advisors could train their AI bot to deliver new business insights for upsell opportunities or Enterprise organizations could create an AI bot to summarize specific HR policies to quickly and accurately address new hire queries. As experts in specific domains, these AI bots can be private, available to an organization, or eventually shared and monetized on the Marketplace.

The AppDirect AI Marketplace arrives as the demand for AI tools across industries shows no sign of slowing down—with generative AI products projected to surge to a $1.3 trillion market by 2032. The unique combination of AI available through the Marketplace enables AppDirect to assist the global B2B landscape in quickly leveraging AI and reaping the benefits of its possibilities, like improving operational efficiencies and creating opportunities for monetization through digital commerce and distribution.

“AppDirect has over a decade of experience in assisting organizations around the world to expand and monetize ecosystem and digital service strategies,” said Nicolas Desmarais, chairman and CEO at AppDirect. “Combining our marketplace expertise, digital commerce platform capabilities, and the massive application of AI, AppDirect is in a distinct position to accelerate and democratize AI adoption for non-technical users that buy, sell, and manage technology.”

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AppDirect and TBI Unite

AIT News Desk — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 15:31:27 +0000

This acquisition by AppDirect further consolidates its position as the world’s premier B2B subscription commerce platform

AppDirect, the world’s leading B2B subscription commerce platform, announced that it has acquired TBI, one of the leading technology service aggregators in North America. This combination significantly increases AppDirect’s existing contingent of technology advisors and further confirms its position as the top destination for advisors to grow and diversify their revenue streams.

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“By combining the power of our platform and our entire ecosystem with TBI’s approach to the advisor-business relationship, we can provide a level of service for advisors that goes well beyond what has been achieved before”

Founded and led by Geoffrey Shepstone for over 30 years, TBI has provided a world-class partner experience for technology advisors. The company has built its business and its stellar reputation by prioritizing relationships with the advisors and providers it serves.

Combining AppDirect and TBI will enable advisors to accelerate growth through an extensive multi-category catalog, the ability to offer more value-added services, and exceptional customer service. This acquisition will provide advisors with industry-leading digital tools to help their businesses to find, buy, and manage technology.

For current AppDirect advisors, TBI’s engineering and educational resources will provide them with an enhanced level of support and enablement.

“I’m thrilled to welcome TBI into the AppDirect community. This is a crowning achievement that gives shape to the relationship-based marketplace approach we believe is the way of the future for B2B commerce,” said Nicolas Desmarais, Chairman and CEO, AppDirect. “By combining the power of our platform and our entire ecosystem with TBI’s approach to the advisor-business relationship, we can provide a level of service for advisors that goes well beyond what has been achieved before,” he added.

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TBI advisors will more easily find, buy, and manage technology solutions and expand their portfolio, ultimately future-proofing their business.

“Our advisors will now have access to the world’s most diversified and largest catalog of technology solutions, making it easier for them to sell and cross-sell a much greater range of products to their customers, and drive new sources of revenue,” said Geoffrey Shepstone, President, TBI. “They will also be able to manage their entire business in one place. The AppDirect platform provides businesses and partners with access to identity management, data visualization, workflow and applications management solutions to help them manage all of their technology through the AppDirect Marketplace,’ he added.

AppDirect and TBI were supported by key partners to help facilitate this transaction. CDPQ, a global investment group and investor in AppDirect since 2020, provided primary financing to AppDirect for this acquisition. Additionally, Mesirow Investment Banking served as the exclusive financial advisor and Vedder Price served as legal advisor to TBI on this transaction.

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AppDirect Unifies its Advisor Business Under the AppDirect Brand

AIT News Desk — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:57:18 +0000

A unified AppDirect is expected to fuel growth and innovation, and create exceptional value for customers

AppDirect, the world’s leading B2B subscription commerce platform, announced the unification of its AppSmart advisor business under the AppDirect brand.

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“Unifying every key element of our ecosystem is a pivotal stepping stone in achieving our mission to simplify how customers buy, sell, and manage their technology”

The AppDirect platform powers more than 10,000 advisors and 5 million subscribers with tools to simplify and scale how they sell, buy, and manage technology. More than 1,000 providers offer thousands of products in our AppDirect catalog—the largest and most diverse offering in the industry—and many of them also operate their own custom B2B commerce ecosystem.

“Unifying every key element of our ecosystem is a pivotal stepping stone in achieving our mission to simplify how customers buy, sell, and manage their technology,” said Nicolas Desmarais, Chairman and CEO, AppDirect. “Our advisor support teams will remain consistent through this unification while our company overall will continue to work on ground-breaking approaches and technologies to help our customers grow and thrive,” he added.

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For example, AppDirect is working on innovative tools that will allow the 1,000 providers whose products are listed in its catalog to better manage their marketplace offerings, package their products, and expand their routes to market. This is essential for providers who are looking to differentiate themselves and find new ways to monetize their products.

AppDirect has already made significant improvements as a result of its unification, recently launching a unified experience for advisors that gives them access from a single dashboard to every type of service offering—cloud, telco, and energy. This level of integration is unique in the industry and greatly simplifies advisors’ ability to cross-sell services and create solution packages that deliver the ideal technology stack to their customers. From their dashboard, advisors have one-click access to manage every element of their business with providers, customers, and AppDirect, with immediate access to quotes and commissions and to the back-end tools they need.

“AppDirect has proven once again that it will stop at nothing to evolve and innovate in order to meet its customers’ needs,” said Chris Arsenault, Partner at Inovia Capital, an investor in AppDirect. “Very few players in any industry bring the vision, intensity, and commitment that AppDirect leaders bring to create value for everyone involved. We’re delighted and proud to support AppDirect in its endeavors and are confident in its direction,” he added.

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SingleStore Selects AppDirect to Power Real-Time Marketplace

AIT News Desk — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 08:03:24 +0000

SingleStore Connect brings together key partners to drive common objectives and collaborate on complementary capabilities and technologies

SingleStore, the cloud-native database built for speed and scale to power data-intensive applications, announced it has selected AppDirect to power SingleStore Connect, a subscription commerce platform that removes the complexity of building a recurring business model. SingleStore Connect is an interactive marketplace for partners and customers to collaborate, discover new use cases and locate complementary technologies to maximize their SingleStore solution investments.

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“At SingleStore, we are committed to fostering a strong ecosystem by enabling collaboration, delivering value and building more comprehensive solutions,” explained Oliver Schabenberger, chief innovation officer at SingleStore. “It was key for us to create a space where developers and customers can find solutions for their needs delivered from SingleStore and our partners.”

The new marketplace comes on the heels of SingleStore’s latest funding – a $116 million round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management earlier this month. SingleStore has almost doubled its headcount in the last 12 months and continues to aggressively hire to meet the demand for its product and services. SingleStore Connect will drive additional momentum as well as product innovations to empower customers to create fast and interactive applications at scale and in real time.

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“Product ecosystems are quickly becoming a key competitive differentiator for software companies, allowing them to more quickly deliver additional innovation and value to their customers, with minimal upfront investment,” said Daniel Saks, AppDirect president and co-founder. “We’re thrilled to partner with SingleStore to power its new, innovative marketplace that will arm partners with more tools and functionality – ultimately helping them to improve productivity and efficiency.”

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AppDirect Acquires Leading Canadian Cloud Technology Provider, ITCloud.ca

AIT News Desk — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 12:24:54 +0000

Acquisition expands geographical reach in Canada, and deepens solutions portfolio with end-to-end Microsoft Cloud capabilities

AppDirect, the leading subscription commerce platform company, announced that it has acquired ITCloud.ca, one of Canada’s preeminent cloud technology providers. With this acquisition, AppDirect expands the geographical footprint in Canada of its AppSmart business, which is focused on helping simplify how channel partners and businesses find, buy and manage technology, and gains full end-to-end Microsoft capabilities. By joining AppDirect, ITCloud.ca will be able to significantly scale its existing business and expand the portfolio of solutions it offers by accessing more than 600 leading SaaS technology and telecommunications vendors in the AppSmart catalog.

Founded in 2005 as an online backup and recovery company, ITCloud.ca today provides a broad portfolio of cloud solutions for more than 1,200 technology partners that serve thousands of leading business customers across Canada. ITCloud.ca will now be able to complement and augment its popular digital partner portal with new industry-first capabilities powered by the AppSmart Marketplace. The AppSmart Marketplace provides partners access to a broad portfolio of technology and business solutions, as well as a set of powerful management tools to help them manage and grow their business. Additionally, partners can extend AppSmart’s identity management, application management and data visualization tools directly to their business customers to help them find and manage all of their technology in one place.

AppDirect has a long-standing commitment and presence in Canada and the addition of ITCloud.ca represents an important step to bring even more capabilities to its partners. Over the course of its history, ITCloud.ca has earned recognition as a top Microsoft Partner and brings that deep knowledge to AppSmart advisors and end-users. Combining ITCloud.ca’s Microsoft Azure and Business 365 experience with AppSmart’s Dynamics 365 capabilities will give ITCloud.ca and AppSmart Advisors access to end-to-end Microsoft Cloud capabilities.

“I’m thrilled to welcome ITCloud.ca to the AppDirect family, which will enable us to jointly enhance the opportunities and services ITCloud.ca delivers to its technology partners in Canada,” said Renée Bergeron, senior vice-president and general manager AppSmart. “I’m also thrilled that as part of the acquisition, we will be onboarding the phenomenal team that built ITCloud.ca into what it is today.”

“We believe our partners will greatly benefit from this new relationship by combining AppDirect’s strong global industry depth and leadership with our relationships and expertise in helping our partners digitally transform their customers,” said Mirco Cristoni, president, ITCloud.ca. “Our partners will have access to more services, solutions and tools to grow their business, while enjoying the same relationships at ITCloud.ca that they have had for the past 17 years.”

As part of the acquisition, AppDirect will onboard the existing leadership team of ITCloud.ca and enable the teams to offer additional solutions with over 1,000 products currently available from AppSmart.

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AppDirect Enters Japanese Market With Commercial Partnership to Drive Platform Adoption

AIT News Desk — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 09:03:06 +0000

AppDirect, the leading subscription commerce platform company, announced it has signed a new commercial partnership with CUON and its parent company, TerraSky, to expand its presence in Japan and deliver on the AppDirect mission to make technology universally accessible so anyone can thrive in the digital economy. This partnership is expected to help grow operations across the APAC region and deliver on an end-to-end customer journey to drive platform adoption across the region. CUON and TerraSky will be responsible for managing sales, project delivery, professional services, and technical support for AppDirect customers in Japan.

“Being able to provide a complete, end-to-end customer journey requires a strong foundation,” said Daniel Saks, President and Co-CEO of AppDirect. “It’s important to have the right partners to enter new markets. Partnerships with CUON and TerraSky, which have a wealth of experience in e-commerce and cloud services, provide a powerful customer experience with our solutions. I am confident that digital transformation of customers’ software and intellectual property will be realized and promoted.”

AppDirect is making its entry into the Japanese market supported by a strong local partner that understands the market and can offer customers a high level of service and support. AppDirect customers will have local timezone and language support across customer success, professional services and technical support. Through this partnership, customers will gain access to greater choice beyond Japanese competitors that may have limited capability for a full marketplace platform.

“This partnership will be a critical building block for AppDirect as the company enters the Japanese marketplace,” said Masaru Morimoto, CEO of CUON. “We are pleased to combine AppDirect’s product strength with our development and operations support services in the e-commerce space to help our customers transform their business models and the experience for their customers.”

“We’re thrilled to launch this new partnership with AppDirect as the company expands its client reach to the Japanese market,” said Ryuji Miyata, SVP of TerraSky. “As AppDirect enters the marketplace, TerraSky and CUON will be providing critical support to make the customer journey as strong and effective as possible. Together, TerraSky and AppDirect are working to make this entry into the market a planned and structured process, guaranteeing a seamless customer experience when choosing a platform.”

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AppDirect Survey Finds SMBs Are Accelerating SaaS Adoption, See Greatest ROI Working With A Technology Advisor

AIT News Desk — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 09:39:28 +0000

New study reveals most SMBs use five or more SaaS applications, while a majority face challenges using new cloud-based solutions.

A new study released by AppDirect, the leading subscription commerce platform company, found that more small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are using SaaS than ever before. In fact, the “AppDirect Small Business Software Trends Report 2021” found that 45 percent of SMBs have most or all of their business software based in the cloud, compared to just 24 percent in 2017. At the same time, SMBs are facing more difficulties with their cloud-based applications, such as migration and maintenance issues. To overcome these, an increasing number of SMBs, almost 48 percent, are turning to outside professionals, including technology advisors—such as consultants, channel partners, and telecom agents—and ISP / telecom services providers.

Other key findings from the global survey include:

Vendors Are a Go-To Source for SaaS, but Advisors Make Gains. Vendors are the leading source of software solutions for SMBs, with over half (51%) reporting they purchase SaaS business software directly from vendors. However, technology advisors have seen steady growth, increasing from 21 percent in 2017 to 28 percent today, while 20 percent of SMBs turn to telecom providers / ISPs.

SMBs Who Work with Advisors Experience Greater ROI. SMBs who use technology advisors are more likely to agree that they achieve good ROI from their business technology investments, compared to those that don’t. Using outside professional assistance for adoption and migration also greatly increases the likelihood of achieving good ROI, with 96 percent of SMBs agreeing or strongly agreeing that they see good ROI from their business technology.

Pricing, Customer Service, and Tech Knowledge Are the Top Reasons SMBs Work with Advisors. Knowledge of technology ranked first on the list of reasons why SMBs choose an advisor, with 51 percent of SMBs selecting it as their top choice. A close second was customer service and support, cited by 49 percent of SMBs, while a fast and easy buying process ranked third, with 46 percent of SMBs.

Technology Bundles Are an In-Demand Product. Of all of the products and services that SMBs purchased from advisors, technology bundles—such as hardware bundled with software, or software bundled with connectivity—were the most popular, with 36 percent of SMBs saying they had bought a bundle.

COVID-19 Raised the Stakes for SMBs and Technology. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 77 percent of SMBs say they have increased their reliance on technology. At the same time, more than half of SMBs, 52 percent, said that they ended up making a poor SaaS investment in response to the pandemic. These findings indicate the ongoing need for expert assistance in helping SMBs evaluate and choose SaaS and other business technology.

“The past few years have brought unprecedented challenges for SMBs, and data from our new SMB software trends report shows that SaaS and other cloud-based solutions have played a key part in helping SMBs adapt and thrive,” said Daniel Saks, co-Founder and co-CEO of AppDirect. “The data from our survey is clear: SMBs are eager to adopt new technologies, and they are eager for expert advice and assistance in choosing the right solutions and making them work seamlessly. The opportunities for technology advisors to help SMBs through our current era of near-constant digital disruption are almost limitless.”

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]

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AppDirect Appoints Industry Veteran as CIO Amid Substantial Growth

AIT News Desk — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 14:30:18 +0000

Pierre-Luc Bisaillon Joins AppDirect to Lead Global IT Strategy and Expand Presence in Montreal

AppDirect, the leading subscription commerce platform company, announced the appointment of Pierre-Luc Bisaillon as Chief Information Officer as the company deepens its commitment and presence in Montreal’s growing technology scene. With a breadth of experience in strategy consulting, entrepreneurship and technology, Bisaillon will oversee global IT organization and strategy.

“I look forward to building on the company’s impressive momentum and advancing strategic digital initiatives for our customers, partners and ourselves.”

“I’m delighted to join the innovative, fast-paced team at AppDirect and make the power of subscription commerce more accessible,” said Bisaillon. “I look forward to building on the company’s impressive momentum and advancing strategic digital initiatives for our customers, partners and ourselves.”

Prior to AppDirect, Pierre-Luc served as CIO at Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group. He has also held senior leadership positions at BRP, CloudOps, and Dell, and worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from McGill University and an MBA from the Rotman School of Management.

“We’re thrilled that Pierre-Luc is bringing his decades of diverse experience in IT transformation to AppDirect,” said Daniel Saks, co-founder and co-CEO of AppDirect. “His insights and leadership will be incredibly valuable as we strengthen our commitment to Montreal with the further addition of new top talent hires in the region.”

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AppDirect Drives Rapid Technology Industry Growth in Montreal

Bisaillon will be based in AppDirect’s Montreal location, an office that has experienced substantial growth as the company builds out its information security, technical operations and IT functions. More than 50 employees have joined the company in Montreal over the past year, growth that AppDirect has achieved despite the global pandemic. The company has invested heavily in its Engineering, Marketing, Finance, Legal and Recruiting departments, and expects to continue to add more Montreal-based positions in these areas in 2021 and beyond.

Montreal is an ideal location for AppDirect to continue its rapid expansion. The city is a rapidly-developing technology hub with a strong startup community and a growing venture capital ecosystem. Montreal was recently ranked as the 16th best technology hub in North America and 10th in the technology talent labor pool. The company’s co-founders, Daniel Saks and Nicolas Desmarais, have deep roots in Montreal, and the city is at the heart of the digital commerce boom that is flourishing in Canada.

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AppDirect Launches Subscription Commerce Platform on Microsoft Azure

AIT News Desk — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 17:25:07 +0000

AppDirect, a leading commerce platform for selling recurring products through any channel, announced the availability of the AppDirect Subscription Commerce Platform on Microsoft Azure. AppDirect has long supported Microsoft’s Cloud Service Providers (CSP) to resell the complete CSP subscription portfolio, powering some of the largest CSP partners around the globe.

Building on Azure helps AppDirect realize improved automation and scale across multiple cloud environments through the rich feature set and services Azure provides. This creates an opportunity to fuel growth for both AppDirect and its customer base. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) enables AppDirect to deliver unique value, guaranteed platform stability, uptime and network performance.

“Moving the AppDirect platform to Microsoft Azure allows us to tap into new growth opportunities for both AppDirect and our customers,” said Dan Saks, co-CEO and co-founder of AppDirect. “In joining our existing partners on the platform, we further our commitment to collaboration, a hallmark of our ecosystem mindset, to drive mutual customer success in this era of rapid digital transformation.”

Bob De Haven, General Manager, Worldwide Media & Communications at Microsoft Corp. said, “We’re pleased to partner with AppDirect to help power digital transformation in new ways around the world. As the era of digital commerce evolves, the trusted Microsoft Azure cloud platform and the AppDirect Subscription Commerce Platform, will enable our customers to maximize their investments in the cloud and grow their businesses.”

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