Selling Software on Cloud Marketplaces Is a Mess. Suger Wants to Fix That.

Selling through cloud markets appears to be an obvious choice for software companies. Customers are already spending billions of dollars on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, so meeting them where their budgets are set should be straightforward. And, as cloud providers double down on their marketplace strategies like lowering costs, increasing co-marketing expenditures, and integrating procurement tools, SaaS sellers have more incentive than ever to pursue this channel.

However, the reality is far from flawless. Listing a product on AWS or Azure is not the same as uploading an app to an app store. It takes months of engineering development, intricate integrations with billing and CRM systems, and continual maintenance as the firm grows. High-growth organisations frequently allocate entire technical teams to marketplace operations just to keep things running smoothly. Some, like as CrowdStrike, even employ specialist “alliance operations analysts” to manually handle lead registration, usage reporting, and cross-platform reconciliation.

Jon Yoo and Chengjun Yuan saw this problem firsthand during their time at Salesforce and Confluent. Instead of watching companies throw more engineers and operations staff at the issue, they launched Suger, a platform designed to automate SaaS sales across cloud marketplaces.

Since its launch at the end of 2022, Suger has attracted over 200 customers, including Snowflake, Notion, and Intel. The company just closed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Threshold Ventures, with backing from Craft Ventures, Intel Capital, and Y Combinator. Yoo said interest was strong, with multiple term sheets coming in quickly—especially from investors with portfolio companies struggling to manage cloud marketplace sales.

A Better Way to Sell on Cloud Marketplaces

Suger connects SaaS companies with cloud markets, streamlining everything from product listings to billing and revenue recognition. Its API-first strategy interfaces with existing systems like Salesforce and HubSpot, removing the need for businesses to design and manage their own marketplace infrastructure.

“Cloud marketplaces aren’t just a secondary sales channel anymore—they’re becoming a must-have,” Yoo said. “But the operational burden is massive. We automate the entire process so that companies can actually scale their marketplace sales without hiring a dozen engineers.”

Suger’s AI-driven automation removes manual bottlenecks, allowing go-to-market teams to focus on driving cloud partnerships instead of getting stuck in operational overhead. And the impact is clear:

• Customers switching from in-house solutions or competitor tools see a 3x increase in marketplace deal volume.
• On average, contract values are 140% higher after adopting Suger.

Suger helps with offer acceptance, pricing flexibility, revenue tracking, and buyer insights, among other critical tasks. According to Yoo, customers switching from in-house solutions or competitor products see their marketplace volume triple on average after adopting Suger.

While competitors like Tackle, which has raised over $148 million, also help software vendors navigate cloud marketplaces, Yoo believes Suger has an edge as a second mover. Unlike Tackle, which primarily focuses on product listings, Suger aims to orchestrate the entire transaction lifecycle from co-selling workflows to automated billing reconciliation.

Scaling Beyond the Seller Side

Right now, Suger is focused on helping software vendors, but the long-term vision extends to buyers as well. Yoo says enterprises still struggle with software procurement, often facing long sales cycles and cumbersome approvals, even within cloud marketplaces. Suger wants to build tools to streamline that process, making enterprise software purchases as seamless as consumer transactions.

To support this expansion, the newly raised funds will go toward scaling Suger’s engineering team and building out new product capabilities. The company has already launched developer-friendly SDKs in languages like Go and Java, making it easier for teams to integrate Suger’s APIs into their existing workflows.

For software companies, the shift to cloud marketplaces isn’t slowing down. The real challenge is keeping up with the operational complexity that comes with it. With its fresh funding and growing customer base, Suger is betting that automation, not more manual work, is the key to making cloud marketplaces a sustainable growth engine for SaaS.

“Raising a Series A is just a milestone—we’re still in the early days of cloud marketplace procurement,” Yoo said. “But the potential is massive. Expect to hear a lot more about our AI-powered workflows very soon.”