You can now count Apptopia as one of the few Boston startups to receive an investment from Sound Ventures, the venture capital firm Ashton Kutcher runs with Guy Oseary.
The Boston startup, which provides business intelligence on the mobile app ecosystem, announced Monday it has raised $2.7 million for its second seed round, which was led by Sound Ventures. The round brings total funding to $5 million. Other investors in the round included Mark Cuban, 500 Startups, RTA Ventures and Full Tilt Capital.
Apptopia COO Jonathan Kay, who co-founded the startup with CEO Eliran Sapir, told me that the startup plans to double its 42-person workforce with a primary focus on hiring in product and sales. The startup is also using the funds to accelerate product development, working on products that will help customers with advertising optimization.
The startup now has a multi-million dollar annual recurring revenue, which has tripled since the beginning of the year, Kay said. He declined to disclose specific revenue figures.
Kay said one of the startup's major milestones has been its ability to rack up several big-name customers, despite primarily focusing on the mid-market. Customers include Google, Pinterest, Facebook, NBC Universal and Deloitte — which Kay said is impressive when comparing the startup's relatively small team to that of its large West Coast competitor, App Annie.
"That type of credibility is not only encouraging for employees but encouraging for investors as well," he said.
As for how Apptopia ended up attracting the attention of Sound Ventures, Kay said it was all organic. A couple of months ago, he recalled, he and Sapir noticed that Kutcher had signed up for Apptopia's service. "He was looking for a tool to better understand the mobile industry because he’s looking to make investments in that space," Kay said.
After sending Kutcher an email, Kay said he and Sapir were asked to get on the phone with Kutcher. Kay said it became clear early in the phone conversation that Kutcher and his firm were looking to become an investor.
Like Kutcher, Cuban also found value in Apptopia's business intelligence service for mobile app — a service that is cited often in the media for stories like "These Charts Show That Pokemon Go Is Already in Decline."
"I believed in Apptopia and its founders when I initially invested in 2014 and my belief has only strengthened as the company has tripled its revenue just this year," Cuban said. "Having experience with my own app, Dust, I know how important app marketplace intelligence is to big and small developers alike and what that insight can translate into."
