IBM SmartCamp alumnus Localytics, a US-based mobile analytics provider, has raised a $5.5m series B round of funding led by Polaris Venture Partners.
Existing investors New York Angels, LaunchPad Venture group and Hub Angels also participated. Combined with a previous $2.5m raised form Series A funding and earlier seed funding from New York Angels, Localytics have so far raised $8.5m to date since launching in 2009.
The US-based start-up won the New York City IBM SmartCamp, the early stage competition of the technology company, in June 2011 before going on to compete in the global finals. Claudia Fan Munce, managing director of IBM, stated how through its SmartCamp programme, IBM aims to “bring together local entrepreneurs, government officials and members of the academic community” for entrepreneurial innovation. Participants in SmartCamp have now raised more than $60m in venture capital total.
The new funding will aid Localytics in the launching of a new automated mobile app marketing platform which allows developers to message their customers and encourage them to take certain actions or make purchases. Localytics is cross platform and already supports Blackberry, Android, Windows applications and iPhone. More than 10,000 apps currently use Localytics reaching more than 350 million devices.
Peter Flint, general partner at Polaris Venture Partners, said Localytics has been on our radar for some time.They have quickly established themselves as the leading enterprise software platform for apps analytics and are now positioned to deliver the first marketing automation solution for apps”.
IBM also crowned the winner of the first SmartCamp Australia and New Zealand, CropLogic. CropLogic is a division of the New Zealand Institute of Plant and Food Research Ltd. It is an online system to assist scheduling Irrigation and Nitrogen application for optimal yield.Other finalists of SmartCamp Australia and New Zealand included AsdeqLabs, InterfereX, Kinesis, and Quintessencelabs. CropLogic will now compete against other startups from across the Growth Markets Unit at the regional finals in Beijing.