2016 Tech Impact Awards: Software as a Service

WINNER:
Apptio Inc.
Location: Bellevue | Employees: 671
When caught in the throes of rapid change, information technology managers need more than ever to understand which investments are good ones. Ted Kummert, Apptios EVP of engineering and cloud operations, notes that IT departments are trying to make good decisions to change themselves. That means having a different conversation about technology and driving the business. Apptio, founded in 2007 by Sunny Gupta, helps sustain that dialogue. Its cloud-based services assist IT departments in tracking their costs and identifying where spending is most effective. Apptio itself is a good model for how to thrive in the cloud, having launched with five employees to produce SaaS products to analyze IT spending and usage. Today, Apptio serves more than 40 Fortune 100 companies and 10,000 end users, with customers on four continents. That phenomenal growth has spawned new development branches, most recently in Denver, and a long-expected filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public offering of stock. As businesses strive to become more nimble in a high-velocity climate, Kummert describes Apptio as a perfect match in a very transformative time.

SILVER AWARD:
Acumatica
Location: Bellevue | Employees: 123
The numbers look good for this fast-growing provider of accounting and bookkeeping software services in the cloud. A doubled customer count to 2,000 in the past 18 months and triple-digit revenue growth last year fueled a move to a new office in Bellevue thats a third larger than the firms original Kirkland location. Acumatica helps finance staff streamline operations and retrieve real-time business data and analysis from anywhere, on any device. It competes with much larger players like NetSuite (now part of Oracle) through powerful interoperation with Microsofts big data analysis tool, Power BI.

SILVER AWARD:
Vertafore
Location: Bothell | Employees: 1,300+
This clearinghouse for insurance carriers, brokers and agencies is a quiet giant in Seattles northern suburbs. More than 1,300 employees help advance and streamline the business of insurance through cloud-based client management services, from policy quotes to billing and claims. Its smart, user-centered Vertafore Agency Platform integrates a comprehensive set of solutions that have drawn 80 of the top 100 carriers onto its growing list of customers, while Vertafore Mobile enables agents to be connected when on the go.