Artisan Mobile Secures $5.5M In Series A Financing

Artisan Mobile, creator of the industry’s first Mobile Experience Management (MEM) platform, recently announced that it has raised $5.5M in Series A financing led by FirstMark Capital. The investment will be used to expand sales and marketing efforts as well as accelerate product development. Artisan previously raised $1.5M in a seed round also led by FirstMark Capital with participation by Artisan management and several local angel investors.

Artisan is the first solution that enables real-time changes to the design and user experience of native mobile applications without re-writing code or re-submitting to app stores. The result is a powerful platform that transforms static mobile apps into vibrant experiences and marketing channels. Non-technical customers such as marketers, designers and product managers can now make dynamic updates, conduct A/B tests, and optimize designs in a matter of minutes versus weeks with a traditional coding approach.  As with the Web, creating compelling mobile experiences has a direct and measurable impact on business results and with Artisan, companies can be sure to maximize their return on mobile investment.

With the close of this round of funding, Amish Jani, Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, will join the Artisan board of directors.  FirstMark Capital previously invested in Boomi, which was also led by Bob Moul, Artisan CEO, and was acquired by Dell in 2010.  "We could not be more excited to be continuing our relationship with Artisan Mobile,” said Jani.  “Artisan is an absolute game-changer.  Over the past decade, solutions that enable brands to create great online experiences have had much success, but until now, there has not been a similar solution for easily managing and optimizing native mobile applications. Artisan’s MEM platform addresses a huge gap in the market by giving brands the comprehensive solution they need to more easily and effectively deploy and manage native apps.”

After a highly successful beta program involving over 100 companies, Artisan recently announced general availability of the first product on its MEM platform, Artisan Optimize. In use by major brands and large enterprises, Artisan Optimize enables marketers, retailers, and publishers to modify and test in real-time the user experience of native mobile applications, enabling them to quickly realize their desired mobile outcomes, be it building mobile brand loyalty, increasing user time in-app, or driving conversions and revenue.  Artisan will soon release enhancements to Artisan Optimize, as well as additional products on its MEM platform, including Artisan Create, Artisan Analyze, and Artisan Personalize. 

“I am excited to be working with Amish and the team at FirstMark Capital again to build another market leader in Artisan,” notes Bob Moul, CEO, Artisan Mobile. “Clearly the mobile apps market is massive and ripe for the development of new solution categories such as Mobile Experience Management. With the backing of FirstMark, Artisan is well positioned to fully capitalize on this incredible market opportunity while helping companies fully exploit their investment in mobile apps.”

Artisan’s sophisticated, patent-pending technology renders the user interface of native mobile applications dynamically from the cloud. The platform’s innovative technology, intuitive user interface, and powerful analytics greatly simplify the process of managing, publishing, monetizing, and optimizing native mobile apps. For more information, visit www.useartisan.com. 

About FirstMark Capital
Based in New York City, FirstMark Capital is an early stage venture capital firm investing in visionary entrepreneurs who are creating new markets with innovative technology solutions or fundamentally changing existing markets by applying a fresh approach or new business model. FirstMark partners early in a company’s lifecycle, offering deep industry insight, a broad network of relationships and the operational expertise to build lasting businesses. Select historical investments include Riot Games (Acquired by Tencent); Duck Creek Technologies (Acquired by Accenture); Netgear (NASDAQ: NTGR); Boomi (Acquired by Dell); StubHub (Acquired by eBay); Netegrity (Acquired by CA); OutlookSoft (Acquired by SAP); and Navic Networks (Acquired by Microsoft).  Current investments include: Pinterest, Knewton, Aereo, Tapad, SecondMarket, Shopify and Lumosity.  For more information, visit: www.firstmarkcap.com. 

About Artisan Mobile
Artisan Mobile, Inc. is the creator of the industry’s first Mobile Experience Management platform.  Artisan significantly accelerates the path to user engagement and creates new opportunities for business growth. By bringing the capabilities of online Customer Experience Management and Web Marketing Optimization to the mobile app world, Artisan helps organizations drive mobile adoption, retention, conversion, and revenue. Artisan is venture-backed by FirstMark Capital and is proudly located in Old City Philadelphia.