AppDirect Success Story: A B2B Subscription Commerce Platform

These days, subscription commerce is on the rise. When it comes to business, subscriptions for B2B software and services are growing significantly. As per statistics, the market size for these 'anything as a service product, like SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, and many other solutions, is expected to reach $344.3 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 24%.

AppDirect Success Story

B2B subscription commerce is known to cover all technology and business operations that power the sales of digital products repeatedly. AppDirect is a top-ranked US-based company offering a robust B2B subscription commerce platform.

This article discusses AppDirect's startup story, founders, funding, investors, challenges, awards, and more.

AppDirect – Company Highlights

Company Name-AppDirect
Headquarters-San Francisco, California, United States
Sector-IT Services and IT Consulting
Founders-Nicolas Desmarais, Daniel Saks, and Andy Sen
Founded In-2009
Revenue-$1.5B (2022)
Website- Appdirect.com

AppDirect – About

AppDirect is a San Francisco-based company offering a B2B subscription commerce platform to bring together businesses, technology providers, and advisors for simplifying selling, buying, and managing recurring technology services.
Operating in North America, South America, Australia, Canada, India, Europe, and many other locations, the company currently serves over 1,000 providers, 10,000 advisors, and 5 million subscribers to power their innovation, growth, and success. AppDirect is trusted by leading brands, including Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft, ADP, Google, and Jaguar Land Rover.

AppDirect – Founders and Team

Nicolas Desmarais, Daniel Saks, and Andy Sen founded AppDirect in 2009.

Nicolas Desmarais

Nicolas Desmarais completed a bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science from Amherst College. He worked as an Intern and Associate Consultant at Bain & Company. Currently, he is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of AppDirect.

Daniel Saks

Daniel Saks attended McGill University for BA in Political Science and Harvard University for a Master of Liberal Arts in Management 9 Finance and Accounting). He co-founded AppDirect and has been its President and Co-CEO.
At present, aside from being the company's President and Co-Founder, he is the Host of a new podcast- Decoding Digital.

Andy Sen

Andy Sen completed BS in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. He has diverse work experience as a Senior Engineer at Arc Worldwide, Senior Product Manager at Waltmart.com Global Initiative and Salesforce, and Director of Product Management at Serena Software.

He has been the full-time Co-founder and CTO of AppDirect Since March 2010.
AppDirect is a team of over 720 employees.

AppDirect – Startup Story

In 2009, Nicolas Desmarais and Daniel Saks spent the summer together and noticed a few trends. One trend that caught their attention was a shift to digital or software as a service that could change how people commence and manage their businesses. During that period, businesses were struggling because of the global recession.
So, Desmarais and Saks saw those macro trends and brainstormed how they could enable big and small businesses to access this new way of doing business. They established AppDirect in 2009 out of an apartment in San Francisco at the age of 23.
The company spent the first three years bringing an individual around that value proposition to the first customer, then selling and launching them. At present, AppDirect has millions of users.

AppDirect – Mission and Vision

AppDirect's mission is to make technology universally accessible for every real business and individual to thrive in the digital economy.

AppDirect – Business Model

AppDirect offers access to a subscription commerce platform allowing companies to sell physical or digital products via any channel or platform as a service. The platform powers all direct or indirect sales while combining identity, mobile, data, and billing management for digital services.
Users can also sell their services and third—party services via AppDirect's commerce platform. In addition, the platform allows enterprises to include add-ons, bundle services, customize prizes, and offer sales promotions.

AppDirect – Revenue Model

AppDirect has three pricing plans- 'AppDirect Starter,' 'AppDirect Professional,' and 'AppDirect Enterprise.'
The 'AppDirect Starter' price plan is offered for $799/month to mid-size companies with monetizing referral business. Mid-size companies selling technologies can access the 'AppDirect Professional' pricing plan for $1,499/ month + Transaction Fees. The 'AppDirect Enterprise' is offered at custom pricing to large companies selling technology.

AppDirect – Products and Services

AppDirect's platform offers the following mentioned services, categorized into Digital Monetization and Digital Procurement capabilities:

B2B Marketplace
Partner Relationship Management
Cloud Distribution
Subscription Billing
Device Application Management
Digital Engagement Capabilities
Proceurement Marketplace
Spend Management
Advisory Services
Workplace Identity & Data Management
Subscription Commerce 101 e-book

Moreover, the company offers multiple solutions, such as Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, Managed Services, Third Party Digital Services, and Customer Support Services.

AppDirect – Challenges Faced

Initially, co-founders found it challenging to get big customers for the company as it takes around a year's sales cycle to close them.

AppDirect – Funding and Investors

AppDirect has raised approximately $474.5 million in a total of 8 funding rounds. Its latest funding round – Debt Financing, was conducted on March 19, 2021, and raised $54.8 million. Some leading company investors are Investissement Quebec, JP Morgan Chase, Mithril Capital Management, Inovia Capital, and more.

AppDirect – Mergers and Acquisitions
AppDirect has acquired 8 companies and these are:
AppDirect – Patents and Trademarks

AppDirect has 13 registered patents with the 'Computing; Calculating' main category and 13 trademarks with 'Scientific and Technological Services,' the most popular class.

AppDirect – Growth

The estimated annual revenue of AppDirect in 2022 is $65 million ($89,779 revenue per employee), with its current valuation at $1.5 billion.

AppDirect – Partners

AppDirect has 64 partners, of which 45 are technology partners, and 19 are channel partners:

Salesforce
Adobe
Comcast Business
IBM
Zoom
Spectrum
Nextiva
Proofpoint
Google
DocuSign

AppDirect – Awards and Achievements

Some of the awards and achievements that AppDirect garnered are:

Appsters Award for Best Use of Cloud
AppDirect named San Francisco Bay Area's Third Fastest-Growing Private Company
Cloud Asia Award for Best Cloud Platform
AppDirect was named a finalist for Cloud Computing World Series Award

AppDirect – Competitors

Some of AppDirect's main competitors are:

CloudBlue
Tackle Cloud GTM Platform
Purchase Commerce
Address
Pax8
Mirakl Marketplace Platform
IBM Cloud Broker
AWS Service Catalog

FAQs

What does AppDirect do?

AppDirect is a San Francisco-based company offering a B2B subscription commerce platform to bring together businesses, technology providers, and advisors for simplifying selling, buying, and managing recurring technology services.