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Two companies positioning themselves in the cloud, mobile and big data spaces—SOASTA and Apigee—have received new funding.
SOASTA, a provider of cloud and mobile testing solutions, has received $30 million in a growth-stage investment, as the company moves to expand globally to enhance its position in the market for Web and mobile application performance services.
New investors, Macquarie Capital and ROTH Capital, joined existing investors Canaan Partners, Formative Ventures and Pelion Venture Partners in this round of funding. The funds will be used to fortify the company’s position in the mobile and Web testing and real-user monitoring software space. The investment will also be used to expand globally with additional marketing, sales and development resources, the company said.
“Delivering quality online user experiences is a critical component to sustaining one’s brand,” SOASTA CEO Tom Lounibos, said in a statement. “As demands of online users continue to grow, we stay ahead of the market by providing companies with predictive analytics to better understand what real users actually experience. This round of funding will accelerate our current expansion around the globe. We will continue to anticipate the needs of this market with innovative new products and services that ensure our customers can confidently deliver quality user experiences every time.”
Tej Shah, senior vice president at Macquarie Capital, said, “SOASTA is uniquely positioned at the intersection of software and cloud computing, mobile and big-data analytics. Macquarie has a global presence, unique insights into the Asia-Pacific region and a strong institutional understanding of the technology sector. Our investment will help accelerate SOASTA’s growth plans as it delivers leading-edge cloud and mobile testing solutions to organizations worldwide.”
John Balen, general partner at Canaan Partners, said, “SOASTA is a fast-growing company leading the charge in delivering high-quality Web and mobile applications.”
In other recent funding news, Apigee announced the completion of a $35 million round of financing led by a new investment from a fund under management by a subsidiary of BlackRock. Technology, consulting and outsourcing company Accenture also participated as a new investor in this round, along with current Apigee investors Bay Partners, Focus Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), SAP Ventures and Third Point Ventures. Apigee will use the financing to grow global sales and marketing and accelerate expansion of the Apigee platform as organizations move to transform for the new mobile economy built on apps and APIs.
Apigee’s flagship product is Apigee Enterprise, a platform for creating, managing and measuring digital initiatives built on apps, data and APIs. The company’s product portfolio has expanded in the past year. Apigee now also offers Apigee Insights, a big data analytics platform that helps organizations gain new business insights in the app economy, and the Apigee API Exchange, an API interoperability platform that powers app ecosystems across any industry.
“Mobile changes everything, and every business must have a comprehensive digital strategy that includes reaching customers and expanding through mobile apps,” Chet Kapoor, CEO of Apigee, said in a statement. “Apigee helps companies of all sizes deliver and manage the core elements of a connected mobile world: apps, data and APIs. We are in a market sweet spot, and this additional funding will help us quickly expand our product portfolio and international sales and marketing.”
APIs power digital businesses, and “Apigee’s platform helps companies turn their digital assets into an engine for ongoing innovation and growth,” Jin Lee, senior managing director of Accenture Mobility, said in a statement. “We are teaming with a market leader like Apigee because the application economy is creating unprecedented new opportunities in mobility and cloud, and our clients in every industry are aggressively deploying digital strategies to fuel their revenue growth and expand market share.”
Promod Haque, senior managing partner of NVP, said, “Apigee helps even the largest organizations evolve their businesses to act more like agile Web companies.”
In addition to the investment, Accenture will join Apigee’s advisory board. Accenture will also serve as a preferred systems integrator of Apigee and will provide input to Apigee’s product road maps. Terms of Accenture’s investment were not disclosed.
With this new strategic relationship, Accenture will expand its services to capitalize on the rapidly growing market for enterprise API solutions. This will include new capabilities in the Accenture Managed Mobility Services solution and Accenture Cloud Platform.
“As our clients go digital, they are looking for ways to more rapidly deploy mobile applications and integrate cloud platforms across their enterprise systems,” Accenture’s Lee said in a statement. “API-based infrastructure has emerged as an innovative and very promising solution to these challenges.”