AppDirect, the Canadian-founded and San Francisco-based subscription commerce company, announced on April 14, 2026 that it had acquired PartnerStack, a Toronto startup that sells partner relationship management (PRM) software and runs a network of more than 138,000 business-to-business partners.
Neither company disclosed the financial terms. One person familiar with the transaction told BetaKit the deal was valued at between $150 million and $250 million USD (roughly CA$206 million to CA$343 million). A second source put the figure at just over $150 million USD and said most of it was paid in AppDirect stock.
All 110 PartnerStack employees joined AppDirect. The buyer said it would keep PartnerStack's leadership team and its Toronto operations, and plans to combine the PRM platform and partner network with its own marketplace infrastructure so that software sellers can run partner-led growth from one place.
What PartnerStack built
PartnerStack was founded in 2015 under the name GrowSumo by Bryn Jones, Luke Swanek, Neil Chudleigh and Jon Mendes. It built its business helping software-as-a-service companies sell through partners: its platform lets vendors recruit, manage and pay affiliates, resellers and referral partners.
According to AppDirect, the PartnerStack network was already producing revenue for software companies such as Freshworks, Monday.com and Stripe. Jones told BetaKit that the platform had passed $3 billion in customer revenue, that transaction volume had grown 52 percent year over year and that paid customer conversions had risen 112 percent.
“We didn't sell because the market was tough. We sold because this was the biggest partnership we could build.”
Why AppDirect is buying
AppDirect helps companies buy, sell and manage recurring technology services. It reports serving more than 1,000 technology providers, 14,000 advisors and 16 million subscribers, and said last August that it expected to pass $1 billion USD in gross annual recurring revenue within two years. The company says the deal will help it build what it calls a unified subscription commerce platform for partner-led growth.
Andy Ellerhorst, AppDirect's senior vice-president of corporate development, told BetaKit that the company had long admired the ecosystem PartnerStack built and that its partner network and PRM software were the missing piece in AppDirect's plan to become a broad store for B2B distribution. He said PartnerStack had built a way to recruit, manage and pay partners at scale.
The two companies had known each other for more than a decade. Jones said that when PartnerStack's leadership reconnected with AppDirect in 2024, it soon became clear the businesses fit together.
The founders and the funding
PartnerStack raised about $50 million USD in total. Its last publicized round was a $29 million USD Series B in 2021. Backers included New York's 3L and RRE Ventures, Toronto's Whitecap Venture Partners, Boston-based HarbourVest Partners and San Francisco's Y Combinator.
After that round, conditions in the venture market worsened and PartnerStack laid off 20 percent of its staff in 2023. Jones told BetaKit the cut was painful but correct, and that the company did not raise again afterwards. He said growth had accelerated every quarter since. Asked about the sale, he said the company did not sell because the market was hard, but because the AppDirect deal was the biggest partnership it could build.
Distribution in the age of AI
Both companies framed the deal around changes that AI is bringing to software sales. AppDirect argues that AI has cut the cost of building software and turned visibility in AI search into a new area of competition. Citing a forecast from UK research firm Omdia, it expects a growing share of enterprise SaaS sales to come through channel partners as AI agents become more common.
Jones made a similar point, saying that buyers face a flood of software options and that showing up in AI search, using trusted voices and meeting buyers where they decide have become more important. Ellerhorst said the winners would be the companies that control how their products are found, recommended and bought.
An acquisitive run for AppDirect
PartnerStack is the sixth acquisition AppDirect has announced in 10 months. The earlier deals included Kirkland, Quebec-based energy brokerage DNE Resources, and BetaKit has reported that a $100 million credit facility from La Caisse supported AppDirect's energy brokerage purchases.
For PartnerStack customers, AppDirect said the business would continue to operate from Toronto under its existing leadership, now as part of a larger marketplace that also serves advisors and technology providers.
