[Press Release] Bangalore, India – AppsFlyer, a leading mobile advertising measurement platform, announced today it has raised $20 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Fidelity Growth Partners Europe (FGPE), the venture and growth capital arm of Fidelity Worldwide Investment, focusing on high growth businesses, with participation from AppsFlyer’s existing investors, Magma Venture Partners and Pitango Venture Capital. With this funding, the company has raised $28 million to date.
“This investment further validates AppsFlyer’s positioning in the industry and our mission as a mobile advertising measurement company. We solve a major gap in the industry by providing mobile marketers the transparency they require so they know where their most valuable customers are coming from and where to get more of them. In Asia, which claims 3 billion consumers that are amongst the most brand engaged in a mobile only environment, we are accelerating our growth and establishing greater presence across the region,” said Ronen Mense, AppsFlyer VP of APAC.
AppsFlyer’s NativeTrack™ technology provides app marketers, brands and agencies with unbiased, independent measurement of campaigns across more than 800 mobile ad networks and media sources. The company’s universal software development kit (SDK) has been installed over 4 billion times and can be found in 9 out of every 10 smartphone devices. More than 4,000 advertisers currently use AppsFlyer software to measure and analyze over $1 billion in annual mobile ad spend. The company tracked more than 2 billion app installations in 2014.
Market research firm eMarketer predicts that global mobile ad spend will hit $64 billion this year and reach $158 billion by 2018. Yet many advertisers remain cautious with the medium, largely due to an inability to measure the outcome of campaigns. AppsFlyer alleviates this problem by providing a complete suite of software tools enabling advertisers to measure, analyze and optimize mobile advertising across all media sources, including paid, organic, viral and social.
“Our mission is to empower advertisers with unbiased information and to give them the marketing toolbox they need to conduct smarter, more effective mobile marketing,” said Oren Kaniel, AppsFlyer CEO and co-founder. “We have experienced tremendous growth since our launch in 2011, and we are thrilled with this investment from Fidelity because it will allow us to maintain our platform neutrality and to further develop the mobile advertising SaaS platform the industry is waiting for.”
An official Mobile Measurement Partner of Facebook and Twitter globally, AppsFlyer’s client in India include Airtel, Ibibo, Quikr and Reliance. AppsFlyer also provides direct integration to many of the leading thirdparty analytics, automation and delivery providers, including Mixpanel, Swrve, Game Analytics, deltaDNA and many others. The company works with dozens of leading ad agencies including Starcom Mediavest, OMD, Dentsu Aegis, Fetch, M&C Saatchi and others that trust its “AppsFlyer for Agencies” solution, released last summer, to optimize the ROI and other KPIs of their clients’ ad campaigns.
In December, AppsFlyer launched OneLink, a unique, all-in-one smart deeplinking solution to help marketers simplify app marketing across all platforms and mediums, including email, web, search, mobile and all other paid media sources.
As part of the financing round, FGPE’s Gaurav Tuli will join AppsFlyer’s board of directors. “AppsFlyer is uniquely positioned to provide the mobile industry with a platform that empowers mobile marketers to succeed in the competitive app economy,” said Gaurav Tuli. “We are very impressed with AppsFlyer’s management team, technology base and the traction it has gained to date, and we are proud to make a significant investment that will ensure they remain the market trailblazer for years to come.”
AppsFlyer will invest the funds in R&D to accelerate development of its product offerings, including new tools to help marketers measure the impact of their advertising, marketing and retargeting campaigns. The company will also expand its international growth by opening new offices throughout the world to complement existing offices in San Francisco, Tel Aviv and Beijing. Additionally, the company will invest in its knowledge center to provide key insights and education that help the industry understand the rapidly evolving mobile advertising landscape.