Kobiton, an Atlanta-based mobile testing platform, has raised a $5.2 million Series A round, led by BIP Capital. Other investors included previous seed investors KMS Technology and Kinetic Ventures, in addition to Jon Hallett, BetterCloud executive chairman; Ken Walters, former Infor COO; and Kevin Lee, the CEO of Kobiton.
The funding will primarily be used for hiring sales and marketing positions in Atlanta, Lee told Atlanta Inno. Lee said he also anticipates much of funding will be used to "continually innovate and increase [Kobiton's] portfolio of intellectual property, in addition to scaling our go-to-market initiatives."
Lee said BIP Capital's previous investment experience in the software testing market (the VC firm has invested in local software testing companies QASymphony and Cypress.io) made them the right choice for Kobiton. He said BIP Capital was able to quickly understand the high growth and global dynamics of the market.
"Their approach is all about helping the company to better understand the customer needs and getting us access to the resources that will help us best meet those needs," he said. "They help round out the customers’ perspective when buying our solutions. They offer a perspective on how to best meet those needs knowing we have limited resources and a constantly changing environment."
Kobiton enables companies to perform manual and automated testing on any device, anywhere in the world, with centralized logging and administration. Lee said the startup's technology can pinpoint app behavior anomalies and help companies release quality apps at a faster rate.
"The mobile ecosystem is incredibly fragmented---estimated to be over 45,000 different device types, manufacturers, screen sizes, operating systems that are currently active today---which places a heavy testing burden on organizations that have mobile apps," he said. "Failure to properly deliver a perfect experience across this fragmented ecosystem results in poor app store reviews, and high app abandonment."
From startups to corporate businesses, Kobiton has provided mobile testing across verticals. Their customers include Office Depot, Cap Gemini, Frontier Airlines, Q2 and Greensky.
When asked what separates Kobiton from other mobile testing platforms, Lee said their automation technology allows organizations of any size to easily use automation testing, something that previously required a high-level of technical expertise. The company also has flexible deployment options for easy adoption.
"Whether a company wants to use our public devices in the cloud, or their own on-premise devices, Kobiton supports multiple deployment models," he said. "Finally, our platform is priced to enable real-device testing within all environments."
With the new funding, Lee said the company has an exciting roadmap to execute on.
"2019 will be about continuing to meet our existing customer demands, but also delivering on a set of industry-first features primarily around mobile automation testing," he said.
