GetJar secures $25 million in new funding
Series C cash to be invested in the expansion of sales, marketing and engineering initiatives
Open app store GetJar has announced that it has secured series C funding to the tune of $25 million, led by Tiger Global Management - which joins series A and B investor Accel Partners on the company's investment roster.
The new money will be used for "continued innovations in its market approach and to support its rapid growth by expanding sales, marketing and engineering initiatives," according to a statement.
GetJar has quadrupled its downloads per month figure in the past year following deals signed with Yahoo, AT&T, Rovio, Zynga and others and was named 2011 Technology Pioneer at the World Economic Forum.
"It's extraordinary that with hard work and an amazing team, GetJar has become the world's largest open app store with over 1.5 billion downloads," said Ilja Laurs, founder and CEO of GetJar. "I was excited to receive such incredible interest for this Series C round of funding and thrilled to add Tiger Global Management to our current investor base. I look forward to rapidly scaling the company to take advantage of the enormous global app market opportunity."
And Tiger Global Management HD, Lee Fixel, added: "GetJar has the rare combination of a differentiated, cross platform app store solution coupled with a unique revenue model. We've been highly impressed with the leadership team and their ability to disrupt the marketplace with the fraction of spend compared to the likes of Google and others. I'm very excited to see what GetJar will do next with our investment during this tremendous growth period."
According to analyst firm Gartner, mobile app store revenues are set to grow to $58 billion by 2014, based on 17.7 billion downloads, 81 per cent of which will be free.