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Apttus<\/a>, the unicorn quote-to-cash vendor built on the Salesforce platform, announced a $55 million round, which is likely its final private investment on the way to an IPO.<\/p>\n While CEO Kirk Krappe wouldn\u2019t definitively confirm the company was going public, he did say that today\u2019s round was about gaining the confidence of future investors. \u201cWe decided we needed a certain amount of equity on the balance sheet. When a company is going public or up for acquisition, the investors want to be sure you are liquid. It puts you in a better situation,\u201d he explained. \u201cOur growth is enormous still, but we felt it was prudent to do final quick equity round,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The $55 million round was led by Premji, the private equity arm of Wipro, the Indian systems integrator. Existing investors Salesforce, K1 and Iconiq joined in.<\/p>\n The company, which has now raised a total of $329 million on a unicorn valuation of $1.3 billion (as of September, 2016), hasn\u2019t been afraid to look internationally for funding in recent years. In fact, its $108 million Series C <\/a> included the Kuwait Investment Authority as an investor, while its $88 million Series D<\/a> included funding from Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n The fact that Salesforce is contributing is significant. At the end of 2015, Apttus, got a kick in the head when Salesforce acquired rival SteelBrick<\/a>. It began a process of establishing some independence by building a version of the product to work on Microsoft Dynamics<\/a>, but time heals all wounds, and the new round of funding has Salesforce back on board as an investor.<\/p>\n Krappe said the relationship with Salesforce never really faltered in spite of the Steelbrick acquisition. \u201cThey bought a small competitor, but we have had a good relationship with them all along and do the vast majority of our business on the Salesforce platform,\u201d Krappe told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n Apttus plays an important role in the sales process. As a salesperson establishes a relationship with a customer, they record those interactions in Salesforce. But once the sales process begins in earnest, the company would use software like Apttus to generate a quote, write the contract and collect the money after the sale.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/myGFhcqCceY\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apttus, the unicorn quote-to-cash vendor built on the Salesforce platform, announced a $55 million round, which is likely its final private investment on the way to an IPO. While CEO <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-9218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t