mParticle Raises $15M To Help Mobile Marketers Manage Their Data

At first glance, mParticle might seem to be focused on a pretty specific niche — helping mobile app-makers consolidate their data. But the New York City startup counts companies like Airbnb, SeatGeek, Soulcycle and Spotify among its customers, and it recently raised a $15 million Series A.

The funding was first revealed in a regulatory filing last month and officially announced yesterday on the company blog. Social Capital (formerly known as The Social+Capital Partnership) led the round, with the firm’s partner Ted Maidenberg joining mParticle’s board of directors.

I wrote about mParticle back in 2014, but co-founder and CEO Michael Katz said the real turning point was early last year, thanks to broader growth in mobile marketing.

“There were a couple of high profile exits, which kind of spawned more and more investment into the space, more innovation,” he said. “And people think about things differently — there’s no notion of ‘set it and forget it’ when it comes to applying your data to running your business.”

In other words, it’s becoming more and more important to experiment with mobile marketing and analytics services, and mParticle allows publishers to collect the necessary data without integrating a bunch of different SDKs — which is not just a pain, but can also cause issues with app performance. As Katz put it, mParticle helps publishers “embrace this data opportunity, separate from the tools that consume that data.”

The startup is opening a San Francisco office and will continue to invest in product development. Katz said he also sees a big opportunity in bringing similar tools to apps on other Internet-connected devices, whether it’s wearables or Internet-connected cars.

“Everybody in this day and age understands that their data is probably the single most valuable asset they have in their organization, that and their employees,” he added.

mParticle’s integrations include AppBoy, AppLift, AppLovin and AppNexus, and that’s just the ones that start with App. (You read about how Social Capital portfolio company Sprig used the platform, and you can see the full list on the mParticle website.) Katz said the company has been broadening its approach — while the first integrations were built by the mParticle team, it has also released an API allowing other companies to plug into the platform (though they still need mParticle approval).

Existing investors Bowery Capital, Eniac Ventures and Golden Ventures also participated in the new funding. (TechCrunch-owner AOL is an investor in Bowery.)