‘I was clear – we will build this company in Vancouver and Canada.’ : CEO Dennis Pilarinos
A Vancouver startup that hopes to improve the process of building mobile software apps has attracted one of Silicon Valley's top venture capital firms to lead its Series A funding round – on condition that it can stay put in Canada.
Buddybuild, founded by former Microsoft and Amazon executive Dennis Pilarinos, said on Tuesday that it had raised $7.6-million (U.S.) in a financing led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. U.S investors from its $1.2-million seed financing last year, Amplify Partners, Blooomberg Beta and First Round Capital, also participated.
"Tooling for mobile app development is undergoing major innovation," Kleiner Perkins partner Mike Abbott said in a release. "It's clear that mobile is where we do most of our computing, but existing solutions in this space are an inhibitor to a team's desire to iterate quickly."
Buddybuild seeks to address the problem with a platform that gives developers the chance to get quick feedback from end users on bugs, crash reports and other issues as they build apps so they can fix problems early.
The tool "closes the loop between development teams and user to make the development process faster and more effective," said Mr. Pilarinos, the Canadian-born chief executive officer who previously ran Microsoft's development centre in Vancouver and worked on the browser for Amazon's e-reader and smartphone products. The company launched its product for Apple's iOS mobile platform in October and for Android three months later.
On Tuesday, it added an "Instant Replay" feature allowing developers to watch a video replay of their users as they interact with their apps prior to crashes.
Buddybuild already has 2,000 development companies using its tool on thousands of apps and is adding upward of 500 customers per month. It has doubled its ranks to 15 employees in the past six weeks. "The growth has wildly exceeded our expectations," Mr. Pilarinos said.
Buddybuild is not currently generating revenue, but it will unveil pricing for its software on a subscription basis this summer.
The CEO said he was explicit with prospective Silicon Valley backers that he would not accept money from anyone who insisted he relocate to Silicon Valley, a condition many U.S. venture capital firms demand of Canadian startups.
"That was one of the most non-negotiable terms," said Mr. Pilarinos, who, like other Vancouver tech CEOs, is a strong proponent of building the local ecosystem. "I was clear – we will build this company in Vancouver and Canada."
It didn't hinder his fundraising efforts: He raised his seed round in a single day and closed his Series A financing within a month.
Sean Silcoff