In 2014, venture funding in the mobile sector hit a record $7.8B, up neatly 109% from the year before. And though this volume was driven by a few blockbusters, like Uber's $1.2B, 70% of all VC deals in the mobile space were in Seed or Series A rounds, suggesting that investors are increasingly enticed by the promise and future of the industry.
One such company capitalizing on this promise is Iris Mobile, a Chicago-based mobile management platform that just raised $2.5M to grow its product and team. Iris Mobile is developing a one-stop-shop for brands and retailers to identify, track, and reach mobile customers.
"Right now, brands use cookies to track and communicate with customers via desktop," said CEO Marc Grabowski. "Unfortunately, relying on a single identifier on mobile is incomplete. We're building a better way to monitor and message mobile customers."
Iris' cloud-based SaaS platform allows retailers to have targeted, personalized conversations with their mobile customers, using predictive analytics so that brands can send the right content at the right time to the right users. When a user responds to a message that's powered by Iris Mobile, the company identifies keywords in the response and automatically generates a tailored, relevant reply.
"Basically, the software enables brands to storyboard the customer experience," explained Grabowski.
And despite its name, Iris isn't simply dependent on mobile data. Clients can also upload and integrate on-site analytics into the platform so that retailers can make brand-wide marketing decisions versus just medium-specific ones.
"We want to be a holistic decision-making platform," said Grabowski. "We're dealing with some brands that have 90% of their sales come from in-store transactions." In order to offer complete solutions, Iris needs to understand the "complete problem."
The round was led primarily by repeat-backers, Illinois Ventures, Origin Ventures, OCA Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels and Serra Ventures; all firms are based in the Chicagoland area. In 2013, Iris raised a $3M Series A and the company is referring to this as a "Series 1A."
To expedite growth, Iris is planning to double its staff within the next six months, including hiring upper management, such as a Head of Sales, a Head of Marketing, and a Chief Product Officer.
Said Grabowski, "Any position you can think of, we're hiring. This inside round shows that our investors see how big we can be and they're excited to be a part of it."
(Image via Iris Mobile).
