AppDirect and CDPQ announce $80 million investment for AppDirect Capital

AppDirect is a San Francisco-based tech startup and a provider of a subscription commerce platform for monetizing and managing digital customer relationships. We covered the company back in September 2020 after it raised $185 million in funding to fuel global expansion. One of the backers was global institutional investor Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ). Since then, AppDirect has grown leaps and bounds.

In a demonstration of its deeper relationship with CDPQ, the two companies announced today the launch of AppDirect Capital, which offers a set of innovative funding programs dedicated to the growth and transformation of channel partners. CDPQ’s investment will accelerate AppDirect Capital’s AppSmart Invest program, previously launched this year, which provides flexible capital for technology partners to transform or scale their business with AppSmart, as well as other forthcoming financial products.

Founded in 2009 by Daniel Saks and Nicolas Desmarais, AppDirect is the only subscription commerce platform for selling, distributing, and managing cloud-based products and services to succeed in the digital economy. The AppDirect cloud service commerce platform unites providers, developers, and consumers of cloud services into a single ecosystem. This makes it easy for businesses to find, buy, manage, and monitor cloud services from a central location and delivers new opportunities to distribute, sell, and market cloud services.

AppDirect-powered marketplaces, billing and distribution, and reselling services help providers – including Telstra, ADP, Samsung, Deutsche Telekom, and others – connect millions of businesses to solutions from Microsoft, Google, Box, and more. We talked briefly about AppDirect after one of its investors, Inovia Capital raised $600 million for its early-and growth-stage funds.

AppSmart, a division of AppDirect, is exclusively dedicated to helping channel partners and technology advisors start and scale their recurring revenue businesses. Technology partners who participate in the AppSmart Invest program maintain 100% ownership and control of their business while gaining access to the AppSmart brand, digital back office tools, and the AppSmart Marketplace to offer their clients a vast ecosystem of software and business services.

“Our growing network of technology advisors has seen unprecedented demand for cloud and connectivity in recent years. With the launch of AppDirect Capital, we will be able to bolster our AppSmart Invest program while building a catalog of financial products to help advisors grow and scale their business,” said Daniel Saks, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of AppDirect. “AppDirect Capital is purpose-built for channel partners and offers them simple, hassle-free access to funding that enables them freedom to grow their business on their terms.”

“AppDirect has established itself as a subscription commerce platform at the forefront of innovation and agility, carving out a leading position in this rapidly growing market,” said Martin Laguerre, Executive Vice-President and Head, Private Equity and Capital Solutions at CDPQ. “AppDirect Capital is backed by AppDirect’s proven business model, which we know well, and a high-value client base that uses its platform to drive its core business. With this new investment, CDPQ’s focus on performing technology-driven companies that accelerate the competitiveness of today’s businesses is magnified by our ability to deliver innovative and flexible alternative financing as part of our Capital Solutions strategy.”

“AppDirect has thrived over the past decade and is well-positioned to capitalize on the complex needs of technology providers and their client networks,” said Alexandre Synnett, Executive Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer, CDPQ. “As a long-term partner who supports promising technology companies at all stages of maturity and across asset classes, this complementary investment in the AppDirect Capital program reflects CDPQ’s conviction that new technology business models, such as subscription-based services and platforms, can fuel and sustain performance over the long term.”