AppDirect raises $140M to grow its SaaS app store for enterprises globally

AppDirect, a cloud-based marketplace featuring hundreds of software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps, has closed a whopping $140 million Series E round, led by J.P. Morgan Asset Management with participation from all existing investors, including Foundry Group, iNovia Capital, Mithril Capital Management, StarVest Partners, and Stingray Digital.

This takes the San Francisco-based company’s total funding to $245 million, including $50 million raised earlier this year. The company says it will use the fresh cash influx to continue growing globally, while further investing in an infrastructure to make it easier for businesses to manage multiple applications on any device.

Founded in 2009, AppDirect’s online marketplace aggregates hundreds of enterprise-focused apps into a single cloud-based platform, which can then be sold independently around the world. AppDirect now powers a sizable network of cloud service marketplaces, and claims to reach 25 percent of small businesses through clients such as Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, and Telstra. It also claims more than one million paid business subscribers.

Flush with cash, AppDirect has been on a rapid growth mission over the past 12 months, and says it has doubled its headcount to 350 employees in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

The latest funding round is indicative of the increasing focus on cloud-based applications, with IDC recently forecasting that the global revenue for the SaaS enterprise applications market would hit $50.8 billion by 2018, up from $22.6 billion in 2013.