Framed Data, a predictive analytics startup that wants to make it easier for app developers to understand user behavior, announced that it has raised $2 million in seed funding. Investors include Google Ventures, Innovation Works, Jotter, NYU Innovation Fund, Alexis Ohanian, Charlie Pinto, Garry Tan, Kevin Mahaffey, Klaus von Sayn-Wittgenstein, Paul Buchheit, Sean Byrnes, and an AngelList syndicate led by Sumon Sadhu.
The capital will be used to hire engineers with experience in distributed systems, machine learning or data visualization, as well as grow Framed Data’s sales team.
TechCrunch first profiled the company in February when it launched out of closed beta after participating in Y Combinator.
Framed Data claims it now has over 600 companies signed up as customers that send an aggregate of 2 billion events to process each month. Founder Thomson Nguyen says that Framed Data does not compete directly with with data analytics companies like Mixpanel, Flurry, and Amplitude. Instead, Framed Data’s app runs their data through its machine learning models in order to generate predictions about user behavior.
“When we last talked in February, we said that the application predicted when users were about to leave, and why as well,” says Nguyen. “Since then, we’ve also expanded our product to predict users who are likely to upsell or pay for a premium service. We’ve found through a lot of customer conversations that their sales and marketing teams are very interested in identifying high probability sales prospects and our new product reflects that.”
Framed Data aggregates in-app interactions, user engagement on mobile apps or websites, and whatever user demographic information is available. For example, Framed Data is currently working with a social network and makes a note of when users post status updates, interact with other peoples’ statuses, and post their own media and check-ins. For that company, Nguyen says Framed Data’s analytics helped them figure out the ideal number of interactions needed before a user springs for their first in-app purchase.
While other companies, like Gainsight, Bluenose Analytics and Totango, are also focused on using machine learning to gauge user behavior, Nguyen doesn’t think of them as direct competitors.
“Our goal is to provide these same services as a standalone product, thus democratizing our data science and machine learning experience to companies and enterprises unable (due to cost) or otherwise unwilling (because it’s not their core competency) to build up a data team,” he says.
As an example of increasing interest in the kind of services that Framed Data offers, Nguyen points to Salesforce’s acquisition of data science startups like RelateIQ and the launch of the Salesforce Analytics Cloud, which, like Framed Data, is meant to help developers glean insights about user behavior through data analysis.
Nguyen says Framed Data’s growth strategy is to target companies that don’t have their own data scientists or engineers by finding more SaaS companies that are currently using analytics services, but need more specific insights from data for their businesses.