Tech giant IBM (NYSE: IBM) has completed its $4.6 billion cash acquisition of Bellevue-based business software maker Apptio, the companies said Thursday.
In June, when the deal was first announced, Apptio co-founder and CEO Sunny Gupta told the Business Journal that joining IBM would give Apptio expanded reach and resources.
"I think of this as halftime of a football game," Gupta said at the time. "It's not the end. It's not the start. We finished an amazing first half, and I really still think the best years for Apptio are yet to come."
IBM plans to absorb and expand Apptio's 1,400-employee workforce, Gupta said.
Apptio unloaded nearly a third of its Bellevue office space last year, but the company has no plans to leave its space at Plaza East, where it has still over 60,100 square feet. Gupta said in June that although the companies are still early in the integration, Apptio could need more space eventually.
Apptio, founded in 2007, helps clients measure what return they’re getting on their tech spending. The company counts Bank of America, FedEx, Nike and Allstate among its more than 1,500 clients.
Apptio in December acquired the Austin, Texas-based cloud costs savings company Cloudwiry for an undisclosed amount.
Apptio went public in 2016 but was acquired three years later by Austin-based private equity firm Vista Equity Partners for $1.94 billion.
"It's been an honor to partner with a visionary founder like Sunny, and we wish the entire Apptio team the best in the next phase of their growth with IBM," Vista CEO Robert Smith said in a news release.
IBM is headquartered in Armonk, New York, and generated $15.5 billion in revenue during the second quarter, down 0.4% year over year. The company has clients in over 175 countries and offers services in artificial intelligence, cloud solutions and consulting. IBM noted in a news release acquiring Apptio gives IBM $450 billion in anonymized IT spending data, benefiting IBM's artificial intelligence and data services.
Gupta said in June he and IBM CEO Arvind Krishna met a few years ago, and the two hit it off. The companies had considered partnering, but Gupta said at the beginning of this year it started to feel like a better fit for Apptio to join IBM. He added that talks heated up in late spring and really gained momentum the month before announcing the deal in late June.
"(IBM) really felt like this was one of the transformational things they needed to do," Gupta said in June. "They just thought it was a long-term strategic bet for their portfolio."
