Cloud marketplace tech startup Tackle.io joins the unicorn club after raising $100M in Series C funding co-led by Coatue and Andreessen Horowitz

Over the past two decades, cloud computing continues to gain popularity as organizations and software buyers are turning to the cloud marketplaces for third-party software purchases. Since then, the cloud has revolutionized the ways software is bought by allowing users to consolidate IT spending, simplify procurement, take advantage of committed spending with cloud providers, and accelerate time to value.

Forrester predicts that 17% of the $13 trillion in B2B spend will flow through Marketplaces by 2023. However, for software organizations, trying to launch successful channels via a Cloud Marketplace is time-consuming, requires internal engineering resources, and each Marketplace is different. That’s where Tackle.io comes in.

Tackle.io is a Boise, Idaho-based tech startup that helps software providers generate revenue through the clouds by initiating revenue channels with the cloud marketplaces such as AWS, Azure, and GCP. Tackle’s platform simplifies the listing process and eliminates the need for dedicated engineers to learn and continually manage the technical aspects of the three cloud marketplaces.

We covered Tackle.io back in 2020 after the 5-year old startup raised $7.25 million in Series A funding to accelerate B2B software eCommerce through the cloud marketplaces. A lot has changed since then.

Today, Tackle announced it has raised $100 million Series C funding co-led by Coatue and existing investor Andreessen Horowitz, and included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners. The latest round brings the company’s valuation to $1.25 billion, making Tackle a member of the highly coveted unicorn club. As part of the funding round, Tackle also announced that David Schneider, General Partner at Coatue, will join its board as an observer.

Founded in 2016 by Brian Denker, Dillon Woods, and John Jahnke, Tackle is solving the problem of making the software buying process friction-free for buyers and sellers. Tackle’s Cloud Marketplace Platform drastically reduces time to list and sell products on Marketplaces, while giving software providers the tools they need to run their Marketplace business effectively.

Sellers embrace Marketplace because of its easier access to budget dollars, streamlined contracting, and the opportunity to co-sell with the Cloud Providers. Buyers love the new avenue as it offers faster access to tools to enable digital transformation and more channels to scale cloud contracts to get volume-based discounts.

Tackle will use the funding proceeds to continue to invest deeply into bringing Marketplaces closer to the point where buyers discover as well as more deeply integrating Marketplaces into core software company systems like Salesforce. Tackle will also streamline the workflow between co-sell systems and the Marketplaces to provide a single end-to-end integrated experience.

The funding, which comes 9 months after a $35M Series B, brings Tackle’s total funding to $148M. The round will help Tackle fast-track the execution of its product roadmap and expand its global reach while furthering its mission to help software companies sell through the Cloud Marketplaces offered by AWS, Azure, GCP, and IBM / Red Hat.

“This has been a tremendous year for Tackle, as we’ve tripled the size of our team and more than doubled our customer count,” said John Jahnke, CEO of Tackle. “Our customers today are primarily hypergrowth startups and we are excited to leverage this investment to broaden our platform in support of startups looking to build a Marketplace-native go-to-market as well as enterprises that are retrofitting their product portfolios to align to the cloud buyer. Tackle’s mission is to provide a global enterprise-grade platform focused on bringing a Marketplace Cloud GTM to the masses.”

In its annual State of the Cloud Marketplaces Report, Tackle found that 83% of B2B buyers said they were likely or extremely likely to purchase through Marketplaces and 67% of sellers said they were investing more into building their cloud go-to-market (Cloud GTM). The report also predicts Marketplace growth will happen even faster than previously reported, expecting $50B in throughput by the end of 2025.

The era of digital selling of software is here and Tackle has emerged as the only platform solution purpose-built for software companies—like CrowdStrike, Lacework, and VMware—to launch, scale, and operationalize their businesses through the Cloud Marketplaces.

“We innovate on behalf of the ISV community,” said Dillon Woods, founder and CTO of Tackle. “Our customers love how we build seller and buyer experiences on top of the Marketplaces that eliminate friction and ultimately deliver on every buyer’s desired outcome: access to the software they need to innovate.”