Meet Sunny Gupta, whose startup Apptio has been sold to IBM for $4.6 bn

Sunny Gupta-led financial and operational IT management and optimisation (FinOps) software technology company Apptio made global headlines this week after technology major IBM signed a deal to acquire the company from Vista Equity Partners for $4.6 billion.

The deal marks the India-bord Silicon Valley entrepreneur's return to IBM, where he began his career way back in 1992. “My career started with working for IBM as an OS2 engineer in 1992 - Today I am so proud for the opportunity to be part of IBM again, one of the most iconic companies,” he said in a LinkedIn post.

He said just 16 years ago, Apptio was an idea, with a few meetings in his basement and the Bellevue library, conceiving what Apptio is today. “Many of you know I came up with this idea by talking with the technology leadership team at Goldman Sachs,” he wrote.

IBM has said Apptio will be acquired with available cash on hand. Though the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, it is expected to close in the latter half of 2023.

Gupta, who is the co-founder and CEO of Apptio, is a serial entrepreneur, and a market and product innovator. He founded Apptio in 2007 and pioneered a market category (technology business management), which led to his company becoming a market leader in a disruptive industry. Gupta also led Apptio to an initial public offering in September 2016 as well as its acquisition by Vista Equity Partners in January 2019 for $1.94 billion.

Born in Chandigarh, Gupta came from an educated and business family. His father was an IAS officer and his mother hailed from a business family. In 1989, Gupta moved to the US to pursue his higher studies on a partial scholarship. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of South Carolina, US. After working with IBM for four years, Gupta launched his first startup in 1996.

Prior to founding Apptio, Sunny was EVP of products at Opsware, and was responsible for all product businesses, until Opsware's acquisition by HP in 2007. He was also the co-founder and CEO of iConclude, which pioneered the IT runbook automation market through its acquisition by Opsware. Before that, Sunny held senior leadership roles in products, business development, and engineering at Mercury Interactive, Rational Software, and IBM.

On the latest acquisition of his company Apptio, Gupta said customers are evolving to a complex digital-first, hybrid world where technology investments are distributed and decentralised, but all innovation must be aligned with clear business outcomes. "We are so excited to be joining IBM and combining our industry-leading offerings with IBM's global presence and strong portfolio across AIOps, automation, and hybrid cloud offerings."

Arvind Krishna, CEO and chairman, IBM, said technology is changing business at a rate and pace never seen before. "To capitalize on these changes, it is essential to optimize investments which drive better business value, and Apptio does just that."

He said Apptio's offerings, combined with IBM's IT automation software and watsonx AI platform, give clients the most comprehensive approach to optimise and managing technology investments.

Apptio claims to have around over 1,500 clients in its portfolio, serving over half of the Fortune 100, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle, and SAP.

The company has three core offerings, all delivered as software as a service (SaaS) – ApptioOne, Apptio Cloudability, and Apptio Targetprocess. ApptioOne analyses, optimises, and plans IT spending and value. Apptio Cloudability ensures public cloud spend management visibility and optimisation capabilities. Apptio Targetprocess is for agile investment planning capabilities to align development resources to business outcomes, and plan and track value delivery for projects or products.

Apptio is expected to bring to IBM $450 billion of anonymised IT spend data, unlocking new insights for clients and partners.