US-based based Urban Airship has raised $25m in its series D round backed by returning investors Verizon Communications, a US telecommuncations corporation, Salesforce.com, a US based enterprise software developer.
Venture capital (VC) firm August Capital led the D round, which also included VC peers Foundry Group and True Ventures.
Urban Airship, founded in 2009, develops push notification services for apple’s iOS smartphone operating system. Push technology allows apps to receive and display data via the internet from a central server without specific requests from the end user. The firm’s platform powers apps for Groupon, Yahoo! and Warner Bros, allowing for the implementation of marketing tools such as notifications, subscriptions and data tracking.
Urban Airship has so far raised more than $46.5m in four rounds over the past three years. The first, A, round took place in February 2010 with participation from vc firms True Ventures and Founder’s Co-op. This was followed by a $5.4m B round in November of that year with previous investors, plus Foundry Group.
Urban Airship subsequently concluded its C round in November 2011. The round was co-led by Salesforce.com and Verizon with contributions from Foundry Group and True Ventures.
In a blog post Urban Airship co-founder and chief officer Scott Kveton wrote that the firm plans on doubling it’s current workforce. The funds received will be used towards “accelerating our solution roadmap, advancing both our high-performance and location push messaging platforms and capitalizing on digital wallet and Apple Passbook”.