Apptera

About Apptera

Founded in 2005 by Charlie Alsmiller, a seasoned entrepreneur with a background in information systems and international business, Apptera Inc. began its journey as a consulting firm focused on business-to-business collaboration. Alsmiller, a veteran of multiple startups including the co-founding of OmniSpace Technologies, identified a market need for better B2B integration and bootstrapped Apptera's growth by leveraging services revenue to fund the development of a technology platform.

The company evolved from a consultancy into a technology provider, centering its operations on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Apptera's core offering was a cloud-based supply chain integration platform designed to automate and streamline commerce between global trading partners. This platform helped clients manage mission-critical documents and data flows, specifically targeting the complexities of procure-to-pay and order-to-cash cycles. By replacing cumbersome, traditional electronic data interchange (EDI) methods, Apptera enabled its clients to connect with a network of over 130,000 trading companies, aiming to reduce operational costs and improve return on investment.

The firm's flagship product was the Itzeze platform—pronounced "it's easy"—which provided a suite of collaborative applications for seamless data exchange. This solution was built to be flexible, allowing for the rapid onboarding of new trading partners regardless of their internal IT systems or data standards. In October 2016, Apptera reached a significant milestone when it was acquired by Descartes Systems Group, a global leader in logistics technology, for an upfront sum of $5.8 million. This acquisition integrated Apptera's technology and its customer base into Descartes' extensive Global Logistics Network, providing former Apptera clients with access to a broader array of logistics and supply chain management tools.