App Annie Travels From China Origins To Global Shores
Growing well beyond its China origins, App Annie, a San Francisco-based B2B mobile analytics developer, has snared a $63 million Series E in equity and debt funding led by U.S.-based Greenspring Associates, with participation by existing investors e.Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Institutional Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. The round is the company’s biggest investment to date and brings its total capital raised to $157 million. The company, co-founded by CEO Bertrand Schmitt in Beijing, has added NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson to its board of directors.
App Annie’s cross-Pacific journey is increasingly common among Chinese startups that seek scale and international prestige. Cited as a staple for tech industry observers and media alike, App Annie provides analytics and app market data to 500,000 registered members, who pay a yearly contract fee averaging $80,000, and to 94 of the top 100 publishers.
More than one-third of its business is from the APAC region. To follow demand in the mobile-first, fast growth markets in Southeast Asia, App Annie has doubled its Asia staff headcount in the past year across six offices in Singapore (Asia headquarters), India, China, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. Clients in this region include Tencent, Baidu, LINE and Samsung.
Following the fund infusion, plans are to improve product offerings, scale up operations worldwide and increase employee count from roughly 425 to upwards of 500 across all offices in North America, Asia and Western Europe. More acquisitions could be pursued as well, building toward profitability later on. Previous acquisitions include app store analytics company Distimo and mobile measurement developer Mobidia.