[HTML2]It’s not often that I get to break news. So I always tend to cherish the few moments that I do. And this one is special for any number of reasons. One, it’s a Portland startup in the mobile space. Two, they’re receiving a respectable amount of funding to continue doing what they do, faster. Three, it’s a company that’s less than a year old pulling in seven figures of cash. And four, these are people I’m lucky enough to see almost every day.
That’s a lot of reasons to be happy. So I couldn’t be more ecstatic to finally announce that Urban Airship—the company that supports the mobile development community by providing infrastructure for mobile messaging services like Apple Push Notifications for iPhones—has secured $1.1 million in funding, led by True Ventures.
True Ventures may sound familiar. (Founders Co-op also participated in the round.) True Ventures is the same company that led the early round funding of Reductive Labs—to the tune of $2 million—before the company relocated to Portland last year.
“At True, we place a huge premium on people and believe that the Urban Airship team has the vision, passion, and technical expertise to drive forward as the market leader in this rapidly growing space,” said Puneet Agarwal, Partner at True Ventures in a press release. “Their early traction of securing over 1,500 customers, serving more than 110 million messages, and reaching beyond 10 million devices has been extremely impressive.”
And this isn’t the only good news for Urban Airship recently. You may also recall that they just sent their 100 millionth push notification. That kind of volume—and now funding—is some significant progress for a company roughly nine months old.
So what does a young successful company need this kind of cash to do? Move faster, of course. And reach into other mobile markets. So rest assured, Urban Airship will be using the capital to expand their team and their expertise. And it likely won’t take long for them to make some other interesting maneuvers.
Long story short, this is an exciting story for the Urban Airship crew. But it’s also a really exciting story for the Portland startup scene as a whole. A small, scrappy startup hit upon a killer idea, cranked it out quickly, found customers, and now they’ve found funding. All in under a year. And it just so happens to be in the mobile space, as well. An area that Portland has been flirting with dominating for quite some time.
And yes yes, you astute reader you. You’re absolutely correct. This is the news that we had to redact from last week’s memePDX. But guess what? Our most excellent senior producer, Dr. Normal, was hard at work, carefully reconstructing the episode and returning it to its previous uncut glory.
Now that the news is on the street, we proudly present the remastered directors cut of memePDX 024 for your viewing pleasure.
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It’s going to be interesting to sit back and watch this whole thing unfold. I know there are a few other stories already underway. And I’ll work on rounding up any additional coverage that comes out of this news.
In the meantime, for more information, visit Urban Airship (which also happens to be a brand spanking new site). Or follow Urban Airship on Twitter.
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