Media & Entertainment

Mobile Marketing Company Fiksu Takes On $10M In Debt Funding From Silicon Valley Bank

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Mobile marketing and ad tech company Fiksu announced this morning $10 million in debt funding from Silicon Valley Bank, after a year which saw it hiring 100 new employees, bringing its total headcount to 300, and seeing revenues of over $100 million. The company today claims it has 800 customers, including big-name brands like Coca-Cola, Disney, Topps, Dunkin’ Donuts and Groupon using its platform for ad targeting and related campaigns.

Founded in 2008, Fiksu previously raised $16.7 million over its prior Series A and Series B rounds from Qualcomm Ventures and Charles River Ventures, but it hadn’t taken in additional capital since 2012, according to CrunchBase.

Across its platform, Fiksu has over 2,300 apps it helps to promote through its data-driven mobile ad products which help app publishers and marketers with ad tracking, optimization, media buying, and integrations. It has information assets associated with over 3.3 billion app installs, and has tracked 4.7 trillion marketing events across 1.7 billion devices. Fiksu uses a “big data” and AI-based approach to analyzing mobile ads’ effectiveness with its “Programmatic Mobile Demand Platform,” the company says.

Fiksu’s decision to take on debt funding comes on the heels of its hiring of Kenneth Goldman as Fiksu’s first-ever CFO. Goldman was previously the CFO at Black Duck Software, and worked in the past to take companies through acquisitions and IPOs, including the Salary.com IPO. He also hails from Lodestar Corporation, Student Advantage, MediaMap and Shoplink.com.

At the time, Fiksu CEO Micah Adler touted the addition as being one of a person who had a “proven track record of driving growth in companies in rapidly changing industries.”

Mobile, of course, is certainly that. And mobile ad tech is a nascent field, which every day is making new advances. Fiksu especially understands the financials around app store marketing. Its monthly indexes track the costs associated with key marketing activities, including the cost to acquire loyal users; the cost per install; the cost per app launch, which focuses on the engagement and lifetime value of mobile users; and the app store competitive index which tracks the aggregate volume of downloads achieved by the app stores’ top 200 free apps on iOS.

The company understands not only what is happening, but also can explain why these costs rise and fall – for example, marketers may wait in a holding pattern ahead of the launch of new Apple devices, or the holidays may increase spending as marketers try to get their apps found and installed by new smartphone owners.

The company says it’s also planning to double its office space in Boston, as it continues to expand its workforce worldwide over the course of 2015. Fiksu currently has offices in San Francisco, Northampton, MA, London, Finland, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, New York, Chicago and L.A.

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