Cloudability, one of Portland’s most prominent young tech businesses, sold Thursday to a Washington company called Apptio.
It’s the latest in a series of deals for Oregon tech companies dating back to last year. The companies did not report terms of the transaction but Cloudability chief executive Mat Ellis said his company’s Portland operation is “core to the future.”
“This will accelerate our growth,” Ellis wrote in an email. He said Cloudability is “merging with an (almost) local company with a similar culture & focus.”
Apptio said Cloudability’s headquarters will remain in place and said “There are no broad layoffs planned as a result of the acquisition.”
Founded in 2011, Cloudability employs approximately 135, about 80 of them at its headquarters in the Pearl District. It helps companies track and manage what they spend on third-party data centers, known as the cloud. The Portland company had raised more than $40 million, most recently a $24 million investment round in 2016.
Cloudability said it managed more than $9 billion in spending at Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Clients include BP, Sony and Siemens.
Apptio operates in a similar market, offering services to help companies plan their broader technology spending and cloud computing in particular. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Bellevue, Apptio had been a publicly traded company until last fall, when private equity firm Vista Equity Partners took it private in a $1.9 billion deal.
Thursday’s transaction underscores that Oregon tech remains a hot commodity for larger tech companies based elsewhere, with deals driven by the strong national economy and continued low interest rates.
Additionally, Oregon tech companies tend to be small and operate in market niches, so they fit neatly into modest acquisitions by larger organizations.
In 2018, for example, prominent Oregon tech companies including Cozy, Exterro, Mirador Financial, Electro Scientific Industries and Janrain all found buyers.
And last month, Beaverton financial tech company Nvoicepay concluded its sale to a Georgia company called Fleetcor, part of $255 million in acquisitions by that company.
-- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699