PremjiInvest, the personal investment arm of Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, has invested $ 55 million in Silicon Valley based artificial intelligence startup Apttus. Existing investors Salesforce Ventures, K1 Investment Management LLC., and Iconiq Capital also participated in this Series E funding round.
Apttus is an artificial intelligence based company that is built on the platform of the American cloud computing company Salesforce. It combines end to end, quote to cash business process automation with behavior applications and artificial intelligence to enable customers to maximize their revenue. Max, Apttus’ artificial intelligence agent can be extended to any business to simplify enterprise applications like quote to cash and customer relationship management.
Kirk Krappe, the Chairman and CEO of Apttus, speaking about the fresh capital said the funds will help their ongoing advancement in an industry they helped create over a decade ago. Apttus was founded in 2006 and till date, has raised a total funding of $ 329 million. This round of funding remains open to additional investments for a short period of time, therefore, the amount raised is also subject to change. The company was valued at $ 1.3 billion in September 2016, earning the title of a unicorn.
In January 2016, PremjiInvest led Series E funding round for the US based Anaplan Inc., investing $ 90 million in the company. The current investment in Apttus marks their second investment in a Silicon Valley based company. Partner and lead investor in US for PremjiInvest, Sandesh Patnam, speaking about the investment said, “In Apttus, we have found a team and market opportunity that fits that description perfectly, and we look forward to working with them to help realize the full potential of the platform.” He added PremjiInvest has always been highly selective in its investments and they work with only the strongest management teams and the most promising companies.
The investment company, through its two funds PI Opportunities I and PI Opportunities II, has a corpus of over $ 1 billion. The firm has been focused on investing in financial services, healthcare, IT, automobile, education and hospitality sectors. They have also invested in apparel retailer FabIndia, Kishore Biyani’s Future Lifestyle Fashions Ltd., financial services firm Equitas Holdings, ecommerce firm Snapdeal and the National Stock Exchange.