Deal Radar 2008: Appirio

Appirio was founded in October 2006 by Narinder Singh and Glenn Weinsten to help companies integrate Software-as-a-Service (Saas) solutions. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, the company has a strong advantage because of its partnerships with Google and Salesforce.com. A cloud integrator with a focus on cloud applications working well together, Appirio ‘practices what it preaches’ and runs its own business without any servers on premise.

Appirio offers services—including strategy, implementation and education—to implement SaaS solutions and develops applications to connect and extend on-demand platforms. The company’s product are Appirio Cloud Storage, Appirio Document Search, Appirio Calendar Sync, Appirio Campaign Timeline and Appirio CRM dashboards.

Appirio Cloud Storage for Salesforce.com uses Amazon Simple Storage System to allow users to increase the capabilities of Salesfore.com. Apprio Document Search helps the user find and add any Google Document to any Salesforce object. Appirio Calendar Sync syncs the Salesforce and Google Calendars. Appirio Campaign Timeline allows user to improve visibility and coordination of their marketing campaigns. The Appirio CRM dashboard allows users to incorporate Salesforce data directly onto the Google Start Page, Google Documents or the Google site.

In May 2008, the company launched Appirio Contact sync to select and synchronize contacts between Google Apps and Salesforce address books. The new tool helps users eliminate the bother of maintaining data in two different systems and enables them to access their contacts irrespective of the application. The tool allows users with both Salesforce and Gmail filters.

Appirio’s products have been well received. As of today, three of them, Appirio Contact Sync, Appirio CRM dashboards and Appirio Document Search, are listed as AppExchange’s ‘Top Ten Installs’. Some of its major customers include Qualcomm and Honeywell. Appirio has seen revenue grow by more than 400 percent in the last year. Its team has quadrupled in size, and more than 1500 customers in 80 different countries have adopted its products.

In May 2008, the company also partnered with Author Solutions (ASI) to produce print-on-demand books.

The company has raised nearly $7 million so far. It raised $1.1 million in its Series A round of funding from Salesforce and a number of other investors in early 2008 and another $5.6 million in its Series B round of funding led by Sequoia Capital in June 2008.

Chris Barbin wrote a blog post in which he mentions that the company is looking for more partners. Venture Beat reports that Appirio is also looking to explore partnerships with Adobe and Workday. With one of the biggest names in the venture world investing in Appirio, it will be interesting to see how the company evolves.

I first met them as a Salesforce.com incubator event 2 years ago when they were just starting up. So far, the most significant evolution arc that I see is the company’s transformation from an integration services shop to a product company.

This segment is a part in the series : Deal Radar 2008