Investors Plug Another $25 Million Into IPO-Bound Flurry

Flurry frequently receives a lot of attention for the reports it publishes on the app economy. It even got its wrist slapped by Steve Jobs for peering into Apple’s iPad launch plans and posting the results.

But, for once, as part of announcing its fourth round of capital today, Flurry is talking about how well its own business is doing — and things aren’t too shabby.

In an interview, Simon Khalaf, Flurry’s president and CEO, said the company’s revenue is on track to hit $80 million to $100 million this year, up 300 percent over 2011. The company is also cash-flow positive, and is on track to go public as soon as next year.

Crosslink Capital led the $25 million round, with participation from existing investors, including Menlo Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, InterWest Partners, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital and Draper Richards.

Khalaf said Flurry selected Crosslink, in part, because of the firm’s experience in taking companies like Pandora and Omniture public. In all, the company has raised $51.6 million.

While many people may not have heard of Flurry because it is not a consumer-facing product, it is crunching numbers behind the scenes of some of the most popular apps running across Android, iOS and a number of other platforms. Today, 250,000 apps use its analytics tools for free, or are tapping into its ad network, called AppCircle, which helps developers acquire new users.

Khalaf said that two things are driving the company’s growth right now: The adoption of smartphones and tablets on a global scale, and a growing number of applications that need its services. In more mature markets, like the U.S., it’s mostly the growth of tablets. “It’s the trend that’s replacing laptops and 13-inch TVs and the gaming console and the magazine rack — all at the same time. It’s infinite growth,” he said.

Today, 65 percent of the company’s revenue comes from the U.S., with the bulk of international revenue coming from Europe. Next, Flurry plans to expand to Asia and Latin America. Its advertising platform reaches more than 700 million monthly unique visitors, and with the adoption of more devices, Khalaf estimates it will soon hit more than one billion.

Currently, the bulk of the apps using Flurry’s platform include gaming, social networking and dating, but increasingly, he expects that to change, with more interest coming from the traditional entertainment industry.

While there are many opportunities for growth, the CEO admits that there are still challenges ahead — the primary one being what kind of ad formats will be dominant on mobile. Since smartphones have smaller screens, banner advertisements don’t always work as well. Khalaf said Flurry is having some luck with video advertisements, but a lot of work still has to be done in figuring out the best way to catch a user’s attention.

“We can find really cool ad units that can engage consumers,” he promises.

Here’s the full release:

Flurry Raises $25 Million Series D to Solidify Mobile App Measurement and Advertising Leadership

San Francisco, CA — November 2, 2012 — Flurry, a leading mobile app measurement and advertising platform, today announced that it has received $25 million in an oversubscribed Series D round of financing led by Crosslink Capital. The round of funding, which included full participation from existing investors Menlo Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, InterWest Partners, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital and Draper Richards, brings the company’s total funding to $51.6 million.  Nick Mignano, Partner at Crosslink Capital, will join Flurry’s board of directors.

Flurry will use the financing to accelerate the adoption of newly introduced platform products Flurry AppSpot, its supply-side platform, and Flurry Ad Analytics, its advertising effectiveness solution. Flurry will also use funds to grow its team and expand internationally.

“Flurry is powering a new wave of digital advertising with big data for the mobile app economy in an exciting way,” said Nick Mignano, Partner of Crosslink Capital.  “The scale at which the company is operating in terms of data volume, ad serving and revenue generation impressed our team. This enables one of the most innovative uses of data for business customers since our private investment in Omniture in 2006.”

Flurry has grown significantly over the past year, quadrupling the number of data points it measures, now over 32 billion per day.  Each day, the company measures 1.9 billion application sessions across more than 250 million unique smartphone and tablet devices. Over the last year, Flurry has doubled the number of applications using its services from 120,000 to more than 250,000.  In total, more than 80,000 companies now use Flurry services across iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, HTML5 and JavaME platforms.

Flurry AppCircle, the company’s data-driven ad network, has grown by more than 3 times in volume over the last year. AppCircle now delivers over 120 million completed monthly advertising conversions, including first-time app downloads, user app re-engagements and completed video views.

“Flurry is excited to welcome Crosslink to our board as we expand the reach and adoption of the Flurry platform,” said Simon Khalaf, Flurry president and chief executive officer.  “Flurry is a unique, mobile-first company playing at the intersection of big data, mobile applications and digital advertising. We look forward to using this new round of funding to significantly accelerate our growth in one of the fastest growing technology markets in history.”

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