Company:Airship

From HandWiki
Airship
TypePrivate Corporation
Founded2009; 15 years ago (2009)
FounderSteven Osborn, Scott Kveton, Adam Lowry, Michael Richardson
Headquarters
ProductsAdvertisements, Analytics
Websitewww.airship.com

Airship (formerly Urban Airship) is a US-based company that offers marketing and branding services to its clients. Its services enable businesses to create personalized messages that can be delivered to customers through various channels, such as push notifications and SMS messaging. In addition to messaging services, Airship provides its clients with customer analytics services to help them better understand their customers' behavior and preferences.

History

In 2009, Airship was founded by Steven Osborn, Scott Kveton, Adam Lowry, and Michael Richardson. The company received $1.1 million in Series A funding in February 2010,[1] and then received $5.4 million in Series B funding in November of the same year.[2] On November 5, 2011 Airship received $15.1 million in Series C funding from Salesforce.com, Intel, and Verizon, among others.[3]

In 2011, Airship acquired SimpleGeo on October 31, 2011.[4] SimpleGeo developed toolsets allowing developers to more easily create location aware mobile applications and had partnered with Airship to combine software and services shortly before their acquisition. Airship discontinued SimpleGeo services on March 31, 2012.[5][6]

In December 2012, Airship acquired Tello, another True Ventures-backed startup. Airship acquired Tello in an all-stock deal in order to integrate PassTools, Tello's Apple Passbook management product, into its current offering.[7]

On February 6, 2013 the company announced additional funding of $25 million from Foundry Group, Intel Capital, True Ventures and Verizon.[8] In October 2014 the company announced another $12.1 million in Series D funding from existing investors.[9] In February 2015 the company picked up an additional $9 million in venture funding, bringing total funding to $67.6 million.[10] In June 2018 the company completed an F round of funding at $25 million led by Foundry Group.[11]

In July 2014, Scott Kveton stepped down as CEO. In October of that same year Brett Caine was hired as CEO. Caine was previously the president of Citrix Online.[12] In November 2016, Airship launched two messaging APIs Open Channels and Open Profiles.[13] In September 2018, Airship released beta SDK for iOS.[14]

In June 2019, the company rebranded as Airship (formally being Urban Airship)[15]

Airship made an acquisition in September 2020, purchasing the SMS commerce company ReplyBuy for an undisclosed amount. As a result of the acquisition, the entire team of ReplyBuy will be integrated into Airship, with CEO Brandon O'Hallary taking on the role of General Manager of Commerce, and CTO Anthony Saia leading the commerce engineering team.[16]

(As of November 2020), Airship has offices in Portland OR, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, New York City, London, Paris, New Delhi, Munich and Singapore.[17]

References

  1. "Urban Airship Announces Series A Round Led by True Ventures". Fierce Wireless. http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/urban-airship-announces-series-round-led-true-ventures. 
  2. "Urban Airship Closes $5.4 Million Funding Round To Help Power Mobile Apps". Tech Crunch. 3 November 2010. https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/02/urban-airship-closes-5-4-million-funding-round-to-help-power-mobile-apps/. 
  3. Rogoway, Mike (November 15, 2011). "Intel backs Urban Airship, establishes $100 million fund for mobile investment". The Oregonian. http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2011/11/intel_joins_urban_airships_fun.html. Retrieved November 15, 2011. 
  4. "Urban Airship acquired SimpleGeo (confirmed)". Venture Beat. 31 October 2011. https://venturebeat.com/2011/10/31/simplegeo-acquisition/. 
  5. "Urban Airship To Shutter SimpleGeo Services In March, With Factual Picking Up The Slack". TechCrunch. 13 January 2012. https://techcrunch.com/2012/01/12/urban-airship-to-shutter-simplegeo-services-in-march-with-factual-picking-up-the-slack/. 
  6. "Update on our plan to integrate location and context services into our push messaging platform". http://urbanairship.com/blog/2012/01/12/update-on-our-plan-to-integrate-location-and-context-services-into-our-push. 
  7. "Urban Airship Acquires Tello For Apple Passbook Tools". Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2012/12/04/urban-airship-acquires-tello-for-apple-passbook-tools/. 
  8. Fried, Ina (February 6, 2015). "Urban Airship Nabs $25 Million in Additional Funding". All Things D. http://allthingsd.com/20130206/urban-airship-nabs-25-million-in-additional-funding. 
  9. Soper, Taylor (October 22, 2014). "Urban Airship raises $12.1M, looks to help more developers market mobile apps". GeekWire. http://www.geekwire.com/2014/urban-airship-raises-12m. Retrieved October 22, 2014. 
  10. Soper, Taylor (February 20, 2015). "Mobile startup Urban Airship lands $9 million, names new execs". GeekWire. http://www.geekwire.com/2015/mobile-startup-urban-airship-lands-9-million-names-new-execs/. Retrieved February 20, 2015. 
  11. "Urban Airship raises another $25M" (in en-US). 21 June 2018. http://social.techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/urban-airship-series-f/. 
  12. Rogoway, Mike (October 9, 2014). "Urban Airship hires CEO: former Citrix Online president Brett Caine". The Oregonian. http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2014/10/urban_airship_hires_ceo_former.html. Retrieved October 9, 2014. 
  13. "Urban Airship launches two messaging APIs, support for Apple News notifications". VentureBeat. 2016-11-02. https://venturebeat.com/2016/11/02/urban-airship-launches-two-messaging-apis-support-for-apple-news-notifications/. 
  14. "Urban Airship Releases Beta iOS SDK with New App Notification Practices". ProgrammableWeb. 2018-09-15. https://www.programmableweb.com/news/urban-airship-releases-beta-ios-sdk-new-app-notification-practices/brief/2018/09/15. Retrieved 2018-09-25. 
  15. "How We Rebranded from Urban Airship to Airship". 21 June 2019. https://www.airship.com/blog/rebrand-journey/. 
  16. "Airship acquires SMS commerce company ReplyBuy" (in en-US). 24 September 2020. https://social.techcrunch.com/2020/09/24/airship-acquires-sms-commerce-company-replybuy/. 
  17. "Contact Us". https://www.airship.com/contact-us/. 

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