Building the Future of Subscription Commerce with AppDirect
Today, the question isn’t “should we have a digital business?” but rather “how fast can we launch a digital channel and how soon can we see revenue?”. For years, many companies in different industries have thought of a digital business as a nice to have, a goal that looked nice on a long-term plan rather than a strategic objective to make any real progress toward. When COVID-19 hit, however, the need for a digital strategy suddenly grew more urgent.
At Inovia, we believe that the companies that can help organizations answer these questions — and enable scalable, user-friendly digital commerce — are among the most promising and valuable companies in the world. That’s one reason why we’re incredibly excited to be part of AppDirect’s latest round of funding. Announced earlier today, the new $185 million investment will enable AppDirect to accelerate its growth and drive innovation in digital commerce, both organically as well as through strategic acquisitions.
In addition to working with AppDirect — Inovia first invested in the company’s seed round in 2011 based on the bold vision of two amazing Canadian entrepreneurs — we’ve been fortunate to partner with other leading digital commerce companies throughout the years, such as Lightspeed (NYSE:LSPD), Rubikloud (now Kinaxis), Well.ca (now McKesson), Return Magic (now part of Shopify) and Clearbanc. These industry leaders are redefining the digital shopping experience for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and consumers, making it easy for any business to spin up an e-commerce store, enable payments, offer real-time AI pricing, manage product returns, and provide financing alternatives to drive ecommerce growth.
AppDirect is focusing on another critical part of the digital commerce puzzle: business-to-business (B2B) subscription commerce. Today, recurring revenue strategies are nothing new. In the consumer world, there are numerous examples of success, such as Netflix, or Spotify, that have changed the way that people buy digital services.
So what separates B2B subscription commerce from these familiar models? It all boils down to complexity; selling, implementing, and managing recurring B2B digital products is entirely different than selling simple subscriptions to consumers. In addition to a powerful billing engine, providers must have a platform that can help them manage the purchase and ongoing management of business solutions. This is where the need for the AppDirect platform becomes clear, especially now, when companies are looking to launch and integrate digital channels into their existing operations faster than ever before.
As AppDirect’s co-founder and co-CEO, Daniel Saks, explains: “Today, businesses are facing unprecedented challenges. Many companies transformed to digital selling practically overnight, but they still face immense challenges integrating new technologies and processes into their operations and making them work for the long-term.”
Making technology globally accessible is what great companies do. As an example, AppDirect helped Deutsche Telekom bring over 40 new cloud services to market in record time while enabling companies like ADP, Rogers, Comcast and many others, to service their small and medium size customers and resellers alike.
To deliver on such an important promise and continue its exponential growth into the 2020s, as more Business-to-Business (B2B) companies shift to digital selling, Inovia will continue to help management attract the best talent in the world, and identify complementary technologies and resources to support and accelerate the company’s already amazing growth.
It’s been gratifying to watch as AppDirect has shaped the subscription commerce industry over the past 10 years. And we’re even more excited to see where the company is headed next. If you haven’t done so already, make sure to put www.appdirect.com on your radar!
