Carnival Labs, a New Zealand and US-based mobile marketing platform, announced on 30 August that it had closed a $2.4m seed financing round co-led by seed stage venture capital firm Lerer Ventures and angel investor Gary Vaynerchuk, with participation by Google Ventures, the corporate venturing division of internet search firm Google, venture capital firms Flybridge Capital Partners and Bowery Capital, and angel investors David Tisch (BoxGroup), Jos White and Michael Lazerow.
Carnival Labs will use the investment to scale its sales, account management, and engineering teams in New York City and New Zealand.
Guy Horrocks, co-founder and chief executive officer, Carnival Labs. “Today, brands need to grow their audiences and run campaigns on mobile just as they have across social networks in recent years. This takes expertise in mobile, smart use of technology and a long-term strategic vision. At Carnival Labs, we provide a unified mobile marketing platform so that any brand can grow their mobile audience and drive user actions across applications.”
Eric Hippeau, managing director, Lerer Ventures, said: “Too often brands are focused on simply having a mobile app and don’t think strategically about their ongoing users after an app is live. We saw this trend happen across social networks over the last few years and the companies that provided the expertise and the tools to drive greater ROI from social efforts rose to the top of the field. We are excited to see the same trend taking hold in mobile and think Carnival Labs is best-positioned to meet this demand.”
Gary Vaynerchuck said: “I haven’t been this excited about an investment in a long time, this reminds me of the days of Wildfire [sold to Google for $250m] and Buddy Media when you just knew these platforms would have a huge impact on the future.”
Carnival Labs was founded by Guy Horrocks and Cody Bunea in 2008.