Developers love this startup with a funny name - and it just raised another $63 million
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Some of them were App Nanny and App Care, but the idea was clear: get a name that would imply taking care of all your app's needs.
Eventually, Schmitt settled with App Annie, which he says is a more serious sounding name, and officially launched the service in 2010, right around when smartphones really became popular. Soon, App Annie started to take off, too.
App Annie is a service that tracks things as basic as the number of downloads and users for individual apps, as well as more complex metrics about user behavior and the impacts to revenue growth. It also shows how competitors perform in certain areas and what trends are emerging in different categories.
In less than 6 years since launching, App Annie has practically become the de facto analytics tool for app developers, with nearly 500,000 people using it. Schmitt says that App Annie doubled its revenue over the past year, though he declined to get into specifics.
We have no idea how big App Annie really is, but investors seem to be huge believers. On Thursday, it announced that it's raised another $63 million round, led by Greenspring Associates and joined by existing investors like e.Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and Sequoia Capital. That's just 12 months after raising $55 million, and it brings the total raised to more than $150 million.
"Apps are eating the world, and that's been our perspective from Day One. We are really unique in what we provide," Schmitt told Business Insider.
Alongside the new funding, App Annie is also adding NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson to its board. Nelson is one of the most experienced executives in the enterprise space, having taken his company public in 2007. Schmitt says Nelson is a mentor, and someone who's able to share a lot of advice across sales and marketing, and general management of a growing company.
The new round of funding could also serve as a bellwether for startups seeking investments this year. The startup funding environment has been drying up recently, by nearly 30% in the final quarter of 2015 compared to the previous quarter, as noted by research firm CB Insights. Deal activity has been in decline too. But the fact that App Annie has been able to raise $63 million could mean there's still plenty of strong demand for healthy startups.
In any case, Schmitt believes there's a huge opportunity to go after. He stressed that App Annie didn't even need the money, but only raised because there's a clear path to growth.
"We are the most fully featured product of its kind," Schmitt said. "We are extremely well-positioned to capitalize on this market opportunity."