Mobile data startup mParticle has raised $1.5 million in an additional round of seed funding.
The company, which says it previously raised $4.5 million, is working to become the data integration platform for mobile developers. In other words, instead of installing a bunch of different SDKs to collect data, app developers can just integrate with mParticle.
The platform will then take care of gathering the data and passing it on to different services. That, in turn, means the developer can try out new services without worrying about hurting the performance of their app or going through the App Store approval process each time.
For example, co-founder and CEO Michael Katz told me that mParticle developers often integrate with a crash reporting tool, plus at least one analytics product, plus another product for push notifications, and another for email, and yet another for ad attribution. Without a service like mParticle, he said the likely result is “app bloat from all these third party libraries.”
You can see a list all of the various integrations on the mParticle homepage — they include AppNexus, Facebook, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Urban Airship, and many others. Katz said that the platform integrates with new services in response to developer interest, with the process only taking a few days. (To be clear, if you’re using mParticle to send data to, say, Mixpanel, you still need to be paying customer of Mixpanel.)
“There’s a shift away from the browser,” Katz said. “So whether you’re talking about mobile apps, wearable apps, and ultimately apps in your automobiles and smart TVs, you’re going to need data solutions that are built to deal with the complexities of browserless environments.”
He added that he raised the additional funding to take advantage of the growth that mParticle has seen so far, with plans to raise a Series A next year. The round came from new and existing investors including Bowery Capital, Harbinger Capital, and Battery Ventures.