Mendix increases channel investment

Low-code specialist Mendix has increased its investment into building its channel and developer networks after hitting its latest revenue milestones.

The firm recently broke through the $100m revenue barrier and has looked to keep that growth coming by increasing its support for the channel, as well as launching a startup accelerator programme and solutions aimed at key verticals.

On the channel front, the main thrust is around a marketplace vendor programme that will enable resellers to gain access to the fruits of those ISVs that add to the 900-plus components already available.

The vendor is on a mission to get the low-code message out to more customers, believing that more could benefit from being able to put together business applications without needing highly skilled IT staff.

“The need to deploy next-generation capabilities in the market is too great for organisations to build every digital solution from scratch,” said Derek Roos, CEO of Mendix.

“We are doubling down on our investment in support of makers, partners and software vendors to create reusable, out-of-the box functionality to dramatically scale up time to value. Organisations can achieve new levels of agility by assembling digital components from within the Mendix ecosystem into solutions.”

The firm has reported more than half a million downloads of 2,500-plus assets in the last year on its AppStore and hopes that increasing its investment in the marketplace will give partners more choice. Changes coming to the vendor marketplace early next year include adding more back-end functionality around pricing management, metering and subscription services.

“We are thrilled to evolve the AppStore into the Mendix Marketplace to better serve our customers and ecosystem,” said Roos.

“For customers, this means access to a growing collection of best-of-breed solutions and components, from which they can create software. For our channel partners and software technology partners, we are providing everything they need to manage products and subscriptions, get usage insights and process payments. All they need to do is build their solution and offer it in the marketplace.”

To increase the options for those selling into vertical markets, Mendix has launched an industry solutions unit that will put together solutions that customers and partners have indicated will be relevant.

The first offering is field service and asset maintenance and there are plans to release further offerings, with something for the insurance industry around customer portals, along with plans for something for CAD/CAM users and for retailers managing small, one-off product lots.

The final plank of the investment will be in the startup accelerator programme, which should be another source of gaining additional involvement with firms that will ultimately end up developing a solution to make available to the rest of the channel via the marketplace.