Capital and acquisition to expand Swrve’s leadership in the mobile marketing engagement space
45 high-tech jobs to be created in Dublin
Dublin and San Francisco, CA November 11, 2015 Swrve, a global leader in mobile marketing engagement, today announced that it has closed a $30 million funding and acquisition round. Swrve has acquired adaptiv.io, a data automation platform for mobile.
The investment will also lead to the creation of 45 new posts at the company’s Dublin base. The announcement comes on the heels of a period of significant growth for the company, including reaching one billion installs of the product.
Swrve, whose platform enables brands to deliver contextually rich and relevant in-app mobile interactions, will use this funding to continue the company’s global expansion and market-leading product innovation.
Leading the round is Evolution Media Partners (EMP), a partnership of the Creative Arts Agency backed Evolution Media Capital, TPG Growth and Participant Media, and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF). Others participating in the oversubscribed round included existing investors Acero Capital and Atlantic Bridge.
The project is supported by the Dept of Jobs through Enterprise Ireland. Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD said: “Technology is a key sector which we have targeted as part of our Action Plan for Jobs. We have put in place a range of measures to support jobs growth by Irish tech companies, including a range of new funding schemes. Today’s announcement that Swrve is creating 45 additional jobs in Dublin as part of a $30million investment is a great boost and reflects the environment Ireland has created for innovative technology companies. I wish the team at Swrve every success with their future expansion”.
Fergal McAleavey, Head of Private Equity at the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund said, “We are delighted to be backing Swrve, an indigenous Irish company with global ambitions, building on Ireland’s reputation as an international hub for emerging high-growth technology companies. This investment is in line with ISIF’s ‘double bottom line’ mandate of achieving commercial returns while generating economic impact in Ireland, as evidenced by Swrve’s commitment to create an additional 45 jobs at their Irish base.”
Said Brian Long, Managing Partner, Atlantic Bridge, “This investment and acquisition round illustrates the global scale that Swrve has arrived at. We have been investment partners in Swrve since 2012 and have watched watched it grow to a level where it today processes and analyses over eight billion customer events across one billion customer devices each day."
With an existing roster of customers spanning some of best known brand names in the world, Swrve will use this capital primarily to accelerate product development and sales growth, to solidify their market position as a recognized global leader in the mobile marketing engagement space. Recent company milestones include:
- One billion installs of the Swrve SDK
- A successful Q2 followed by a peak Q3 represented by 4x growth from Q3 2014
- Unprecedented expansion across verticals such as Financial Services, Media and Publishing, and Entertainment
- Rapid hiring across its growing employee base in San Francisco, New York, Dublin, London, and continental Europe.
Said Swrve co-founder and CTO Dr. Steve Collins, “This is a key moment in the evolution of Swrve. This funding round, with its strong mix of US and Irish partners, and acquisition reflect incredible momentum and growth for the company. It also reflects the dynamic ecosystem that has been developed in Ireland for technology companies. It’s a good time to be a technology start-up in Ireland and our journey since founding Swrve five years ago certainly reflects that."
Commenting on their partnership, Marco DeMiroz, Managing Director of Evolution Media Capital, who also joins Swrve's Board of Directors, said, “Swrve solves real problems for real mobile marketers. We’re thrilled to be investing in Swrve, which is helping to make marketing more powerful, more relevant, more targeted and more effective than ever before, revolutionizing how some of the biggest brands in the world interact with their customers.”
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About Swrve
Swrve’s Mobile Engagement Platform empowers digital marketers to create the ideal mobile customer experience. Whether an app is part of an omni-channel strategy or is a mobile-first business, Swrve provides the marketing tools required to drive meaningful user engagement, retention, and revenue. A 2015 Inc. 500 honoree, Swrve’s mobile platform is the means for brands to engage mobile users in a timely, compelling, and contextually relevant way.
Swrve’s easy-to-use platform also brings advanced audience targeting, real-time segmentation, conversations, and personalization to push notifications and messaging inside the app. Building lasting customer relationships on mobile is essential to long-term growth. Swrve partners with leading brands, agencies and technology partners – including The Guardian, Condé Nast, Glamsquad, Warner Brothers, Salesforce, Oracle, and Marketo – and is installed in mobile apps across industries, such as retail, media, travel/hospitality, entertainment, sports, games, and banking. Swrve clients have delivered more than one billion mobile messages, and the Swrve platform processes over eight billion events on a daily basis.
About adaptiv.io
Originally founded in 2007 by live game operations pioneers, and backed by Evolution Media Capital, adaptiv.io provides real-time analysis and actions to maximize revenue through its patent-pending next generation cross-channel and cross-platform data automation system for online and mobile marketing. adaptiv.io’s experienced team of industry veterans have worked on the biggest titles in the industry, and on every platform from PC to console to mobile, helping solve the complex problems involved in running service-driven games and applications.
About Atlantic Bridge
Atlantic Bridge is a private equity firm investing in Middle Market Technology assets across Europe, with offices in Dublin, London, Silicon Valley, Beijing and Hong Kong. It focuses on making domain-specific investments in late-stage venture capital, expansion capital and buy-out transactions. The Atlantic Bridge portfolio currently consists of companies in the communications technology, semiconductor and software sectors. Atlantic Bridge brings together a unique team of technology entrepreneurs, experienced managers, finance professionals and investment experts, with over 100 years of international business experience .The team has worked together in various capacities for 20 years, bringing a true partnership approach to the firm and its investments. For more information, please visit www.abven.com.