Canadian-founded, San Francisco-based AppDirect has acquired Toronto’s PartnerStack, which provides partner relationship management (PRM) software.
The financial terms of the transaction, which the companies announced today, were not disclosed. AppDirect helps other firms buy, sell, and manage recurring tech services. It says the deal will help it create “the unified subscription commerce platform for partner-led growth.”
“With this acquisition, we’re at the centre of the underlying infrastructure powering enterprise technology purchase decisions today,” AppDirect chair and CEO Nicolas Desmarais said in a release. “Navigating commerce and partner management requires a unified platform.”
“We are thrilled to further AppDirect’s position as the everything store for B2B distribution.”
According to AppDirect, the strategic acquisition unites PartnerStack’s network of more than 138,000 B2B partners and PRM offering with AppDirect’s marketplace infrastructure, giving businesses a single platform to launch, run, and scale partner-led growth. PartnerStack marks the American business-to-business commerce firm’s sixth acquisition in the past year.
AppDirect serves more than 1,000 tech providers, 14,000 advisors, and 16 million subscribers. The firm announced last August that it anticipates the company will cross $1 billion in gross annual recurring revenue within the next two years.
PartnerStack, which was founded in 2015 under the name GrowSumo, made a name for itself by helping software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies grow through partnerships.
Amid fears of an AI-driven “SaaSpocalypse,” AppDirect says what is clear is that the tech has cut the cost of software development and made AI search visibility “the new battleground.”
In line with a forecast from UK tech research firm Omdia, AppDirect is betting that in the agentic AI era, an increasing percentage of enterprise SaaS sales will come via channel partners and the firms that make distribution a core part of their strategy will own the market.
PartnerStack, whose last publicized round was a $35-million CAD Series B in 2021, had raised at least $46 million in total funding from New York City’s 3L, and RRE Ventures, Toronto’s Whitecap Venture Partners, and Boston-based Harbourvest Partners, and San Francisco’s Y Combinator, among others. The company also shed 20 percent of its staff in 2023 as macroeconomic conditions deteriorated.
“We are thrilled to further AppDirect’s position as the everything store for B2B distribution,” PartnerStack co-founder and CEO Bryn Jones said in a release. “Our network has driven over $3 billion in revenue for our customers and is increasingly relied on to help businesses show up in AI search.”
Feature image courtesy PartnerStack.