Annual Research from Tercera Points to New Growth Opportunities for IT Services Firms

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Sep 06, 2023, 09:30 ET

The 2023 Tercera 30 identifies key players and shifts in software partner ecosystems; partner saturation hinders some ecosystems while insatiable interest in AI drives others

CHICAGO, Sept. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Tercera, an investment firm supporting growth-stage IT professional services firms, today unveiled the 2023 Tercera 30, its annual list of the top cloud ecosystems for service partners. The Tercera 30 report profiles the B2B cloud software companies that Tercera believes hold the greatest potential for IT services firms in the next two to five years.

The full report and interactive listing of the Tercera 30 can be found here.

The report profiles 30 cloud-focused Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) that rely on consultancies, systems integrators and managed service providers for growth. It includes 10 of the largest publicly-traded ISVs (Market Anchors), 10 large and fast growing publicly-traded ISVs (Market Movers), and 10 privately-held ISVs that have fast growing partner ecosystems (Market Challengers). This year's report also includes 6 ISVs that Tercera considers ones to watch.

Highlights from the report
Nearly one-third of the names on the 2023 Tercera 30 are new to the list. They include: Contentstack, Crowdstrike, Dataiku, Fluent, HubSpot, Nvidia, OpenAI, Palo Alto Networks and Stripe.

Within its research, Tercera also found significant shifts in growth rates among the Market Anchors, increasing saturation in some partner ecosystems, and several ISVs moving upmarket and more heavily into AI.

Market Anchors remain entrenched, but some struggled this year
When it comes to the largest and most mature vendors on the Tercera 30, Google, Microsoft and Oracle rose in prominence among partners. None of the fastest-growing firms among the surveyed were aligned with Salesforce this year, instead they centered around AWS, Microsoft and Snowflake. HubSpot, a new addition to the Market Movers list and Salesforce competitor, appears to be gaining traction in the market and with partners.

AI is changing the playing field and creating new opportunities
Three of the new names on this year's list – Nvidia, OpenAI and Dataiku – are making big waves in AI. However, every one of the Tercera 30 companies made announcements around AI this year, underscoring the significant opportunity for service providers to guide customers in this area. More AI insights from the research can be found here.

Demand for cybersecurity continues
Security, compliance and governance vendors continue to be lucrative ecosystems for partners, especially as enterprises look for support and guidance in this crowded, fast moving space. Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike joined Okta and Datadog on this year's list, based on market performance, the traction of their next-gen solutions, and input from industry insiders that their channel partners are seeing tailwinds.

IT is becoming increasingly composable
By 2026, Gartner predicts that revenue growth at leading enterprise software providers will slow as mainstream business investment shifts to more modular providers. In fact, three of the five new Market Challengers – Contentstack, Fluent Commerce and Stripe – are beneficiaries of this move to composable solutions. As systems become more modular, service providers will need to foster a broader ecosystem of partners than they have in the past.

"Picking the right software ecosystem to build a technology services business around isn't easy, but it can have a massive financial impact on the bottom line," said Chris Barbin, CEO of Tercera. "The Tercera 30 identifies the best areas for growth, helping founders and IT service leaders make more informed decisions about which platforms and partners might hold more opportunity than others."

To develop the list, Tercera evaluated more than 150 vendors. The 30 finalists were selected through a combination of data analysis, interviews with market insiders, a survey of 50+ IT service firm leaders, and insights gleaned from conversations with more than 100 ISVs and service firm founders. A full overview of the methodology can be found here.

2023 Tercera 30 List
The Market Anchors:
These are the 10 largest publicly-traded cloud-focused ISVs, with mature partner programs that support hundreds to thousands of partners, including some of the biggest GSIs.

Google Cloud
SAP
Microsoft Azure
Salesforce
AWS
Adobe
ServiceNow
Oracle
Workday
Snowflake

The Market Movers:
These are 10 publicly-traded, high-growth cloud ISVs that are actively building out their partner ecosystems, and taking up greater mindshare with buyers looking to modernize systems and processes for the digital age.

Nvidia*
Palo Alto Networks*
Atlassian
CrowdStrike*
Shopify
HashiCorp
Datadog
Hubspot*
UiPath
Okta

Market Challengers:
These are 10 high-growth private cloud ISVs that are grabbing outsized attention from influencers and investors. They represent companies across a wide variety of market segments, and while they may not yet have the market penetration of those in the Anchors or Movers categories, they are making waves.

Databricks
Celonis
Outsystems
Fluent*
Contentstack*
OpenAI*
Stripe*
OneStream
Dataiku*
commercetools

*new to the list

About Tercera
Tercera is an investment firm founded to accelerate the growth of people-centric businesses. Specializing in the $460 billion cloud professional services market, the Tercera team is composed of invested operators who know first-hand what it takes to build and scale a successful cloud services business. Tercera is on a mission to identify the ecosystems and service providers that will lead the Third Wave of Cloud Computing, and provide them with the capital, counsel and connections they need to scale faster.

SOURCE Tercera