Cloud services company Appirio in $35m funding boost

US-based cloud services company Appirio has raised $35 million in a Series E funding round, the company has announced.

The California tech business, which offers cloud and enterprise crowdsourcing services, will also take on ex-Amazon and Electronic Arts expert Alex Castro as chief technology officer (CTO).

Since its foundation in 2006 Appirio has become a corporate partner to a number of large global brands including Coca-Cola, Facebook and eBay. A statement released by the company claims its platform “harnesses the power of one of the world’s largest crowdsourcing communities”.

“[Including] thousands of ready to deploy assets and leading cloud, industry and technical experts to help our customers drive competitive advantage.”

The business has recently opened an office in Dublin – expanding on current bases in the US, UK, Japan and India. The business has also made a number of acquisitions as part of its expansion.

In December 2011 it acquired European cloud consulting services provider Saaspoint. It also acquired TopCoder in September 2013 and subsequently merged it into its own platform CloudSpokes in January 2014.

The latest funding round was led by Fidelity Management & Consultant Research Company. Appirio CEO Chris Barbin said he was “excited” about having the investor and new CTO Castro onboard.

“Traditional consulting models have not evolved much in the last 20 years,” he added.

“They’ve become unnecessarily complex and have not kept pace with today’s cloud economy. Appirio offers a fundamentally different approach to solving business problems. This new funding validates our leadership position and our track record in the market.”