AppsFlyer receives funding from Salesforce to develop new products and hire more staff across EMEA

AppsFlyer has received funding from Salesforce Ventures, the investment arm of Salesforce.com Inc. which provides customer relationship management solution.

The new investment from Salesforce is a late entry to AppsFlyer's Series D funding. Thus, the size of the Series D has increased to more than $225 million from $210 million that was announced in January 2020. AppsFlyer's valuation has also increased to $2 billion from $1.6 billion. And it has now raised over $300 million since it was launched in 2011 by Oren Kaniel and Reshef Mann.

AppsFlyer is a global mobile marketing and attribution platform. It enables marketers to understand the user journey from seeing an ad to acting upon it. "Attribution is a must-have", Oren said.

AppsFlyer will use the latest funding to develop new products more quickly. It will also seek to increase its head count of 1,000 employees by around a third, Oren told the Wall Street Journal.

"We have been looking at delivering software to allow for the kinds of insights that app developers and marketers can benefit from while protecting privacy for the end-user", he said.

Nowi Kallen, Principal at Salesforce Ventures, said: "AppsFlyer has been the driving force in mobile marketing attribution and has demonstrated true, long-term commitment to represent the app developers within the ecosystem. Through a customer-centric approach, 8,000-partner strong marketplace and privacy by design, AppsFlyer’s innovative technology enables marketers to delight their end-users with a great user experience, while protecting their privacy".

Salesforce Ventures joins AppsFlyer's roster of investors, including General Atlantic, Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, DTCP (Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners), Qumra Capital, Pitango Venture Capital, Magma Venture Partners, and Eight Roads Ventures.

AppsFlyer now exceeds $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and it is "very close to breaking even".

What does the fundraise mean for AppsFlyer's operation in Africa?

The Head of Sales at AppsFlyer — Africa, Idan Horenczyk told benjamindada.com that AppsFlyer would be increasing its headcount in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). "We see a huge opportunity as the number of mobile users in sub-Saharan Africa continues to grow. That's why we're doubling our team focused on the region in 2021", Idan said.

"This includes expanding our sales and customer success teams so we can continue to provide a high quality experience for marketers, app developers and the entire ecosystem".

Since AppsFlyer launched in Israel nine years ago, it has worked with Vodacom, Jiji and Ayoba. It helped the classified marketplace Jiji to increase its daily app installs by 214% in one year. And MTN's instant messaging app Ayoba is using AppsFlyer's technology to improve its user acquisition efforts.

"We’re looking forward to supporting more companies in the region [that is sub-Saharan Africa], to help them optimise their day-to-day marketing activities and attract loyal and engaged users", Idan said.

In October 2020, AppsFlyer released the 11th edition of its Performance Index which analysed 27 billion app installs across 495 media networks and 14,000 apps. The report provides a complete overview of the mobile media landscape across multiple marketing activities to help app marketers optimise their budgets.

The Performance Index shows that Google is best platform for driving performance for app marketers in Africa, while Facebook is the best platform for remarketing across Africa and the Middle East.

"In our latest Performance Index, we found that globally Google and Facebook continue to dominate mobile advertising with a significant majority of the non-organic install market", Idan told benjamindada.com.

"Google clearly dominates on Android, and as Android accounts for more than 85% of the mobile operating system market in Africa — that’s where app marketers should be focusing their attention".

He added that more and more ad networks are beginning to work in Africa and "we expect this trend to continue as the market grows. The Performance Index will continue to underpin this growth with more data and informed analysis from Africa that will make it easier for everyone to get the best results".

Since 2015, the AppsFlyer's Performance Index has been the go-to source of information for many marketers as it helps them to decide which media sources to partner with.