Sunny Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder of Apptio

New details are emerging about Apptio’s huge $50 million venture round, which closed six months ago from T. Rowe Price, Madrona Venture Group and others. Fortune’s Dan Primack reports today that Apptio’s valuation at the time was a whopping $700 million, and likely has climbed higher in recent months.

We reached out to Apptio, and Chief Marketing Officer Chris Pick tells us that the last funding round was raised at a $600 million figure. [Editor’s note: This post has been updated to reflect the accurate valuation at the time of the last venture round].

That’s a pretty huge sum, but not a big surprise given the growth and excitement around enterprise software. Apptio, which is led by Seattle area entrepreneur Sunny Gupta, sells on-demand software and services for managing corporate IT departments. Its customer include Bank of America, Boeing, Cisco, Microsoft and Facebook.

While not as sexy as consumer Internet companies, enterprise  software is hot right now.

The excitement was highlighted by the strong stock market debut last week of Jeff Bezos-backed Workday, a maker of payroll and expense management software which soared more than 70 percent in its first-day of trading.

Fortune’s Primack suggests that the Workday IPO actually could be a good thing for Apptio, pushing its valuation even higher.

If so, could Apptio soon join the ranks of privately-held companies worth more than $1 billion?

It’s certainly worth watching, though Business Insider recently estimated that Apptio was worth only $350 million. (Valuations are ever-changing and are hard to pin down for private companies, but an Apptio spokeswoman tells us that Business Insider’s estimated valuation is inaccurate).

Apptio isn’t the only young Seattle area upstart valued in the $600 million range. As we reported last year, Zulily’s $43 million venture round was raised at a valuation of about $750 million.

We’ve mentioned both Apptio and Zulily as possible IPO candidates. Given the recent success of Workday and the lackluster performance of companies such as Groupon and Facebook, I’d bet right now that Apptio gets there first.

And we all know that Gupta wants to achieve that milestone, telling us that he’s keen on building the next big enterprise software company in the Northwest.

Previously on GeekWireHoly cow! Apptio on pace to top $50 million in bookings this year

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