Rajeev Singh

Just two weeks after raising $16.5 million in venture capital financing, Apptio is back in the news with the appointment of a big-name director to its board. Rajeev Singh, the president and chief operating officer at Redmond-based Concur, says that he plans to help the fast-growing software startup take advantage of growth opportunities in the new role.

That's something that Singh has done pretty well at Concur, a maker of travel and entertainment expense management software which now boasts a market value of $2.6 billion. Apptio founder Sunny Gupta likes to say that he wants to build the next big enterprise software company in Seattle, and if that's the case there's probably no better company to follow (and get advice from) than Concur.

"Apptio's significant growth, combined with its leadership and innovation in the Technology Business Management market, has positioned the company as one of the hottest players in enterprise software," said Singh, who co-founder Concur with his brother Steve in 1993. "As a member of the company's advisory board, I have watched Apptio quickly grow its customer roster, product suite and team over the last several years. The company meets all the necessary criteria to rapidly accelerate its growth and become the defacto standard for helping CIOs manage the business of technology."

Apptio, which has developed an online software system to help CIOs get a better handle on their corporate IT costs, has raised $37.5 million from Madrona Venture Group, Greylock, Andreessen Horowitz and Shasta Ventures.

Interestingly, the connections between Seattle-based Madrona and the Singh brothers (Rajeev's brother Steve serves as CEO of Concur) appear to be strengthening. Earlier this year, Steve Singh joined the board of Madrona-backed AdReady.

Could venture capital be in their future plans?