As developers add more interactivity to their apps, PubNub has emerged with a platform for sending out real-time messages and notifications without investing heavily in the infrastructure needed to support it. While it has historically been focused on one-to-many notifications, the latest product from the startup, PubNub Pulse, will allow developers to add persistent connections between users.
PubNub works to allow developers to add robust messaging into their apps without having to “rebuild the wheel.” The startup’s initial product, PubNub Galaxy, was designed for app makers who wish to simultaneously push out real-time messages in a one-to-many fashion. That allows publishers to push messages to mass-scale audiences during major events to multiple mobile and web applications.
PubNub Pulse, by contrast, was designed with low-latency, one-to-one communication in mind. That will let publishers deliver messages in less than 50 milliseconds without having the complexity that comes with keeping connections live between devices and apps. Initial customers for PubNub Pulse include MyPCBackup.com, Dice with Buddies, CometChat, and “a large VOIP company” which is using the product as a replacement for the SIP communications protocol.
Traffic from clients using the service has exploded over the last several weeks, as PubNub has grown from 1,000 active customers in March to more than 1,500 at last count. Three months ago, it hit a peak of about 100,000 messages per second. But the most recent milestone saw it deliver ten times that — 1 million messages a second — thanks to voting and sentiment analytics apps being used during the E3 gaming conference, as well as HumbleBundle live commerce launch last week.
San Francisco-based PubNub has 14 employees, and recently closed a $4.5 million financing round led by mobile-focused VC firm Relay Ventures.