Heather Arranie 
Branch Metrics, a mobile deep linking platform, recently closed its latest funding round, bringing in $300 million and quadrupling its valuation. Temasek led the raise, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, with participation from DST Global, Coatue Management, Goldman Sachs, and existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates, and NEA.
This marks the largest single round of fundraising for the mobile linking platform.
Branch Metrics quadruples valuation in $300 million funding
Branch Metrics is a mobile technology company that helps businesses transform customer experiences by improving customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. By simplifying the process of making deep links, Branch enables businesses to easily connect customers from various sources. Branch has enabled more than 41,000 brands in 176 countries to use mobile linking solutions to increase customer engagement.
The company recently announced that it had secured $300 million in new funding at a valuation of $2.6 billion. This marks a four-fold increase in the company’s valuation since 2019 and highlights the potential of mobile linking technology. The new funds will be used to invest in engineering and product development initiatives to further enhance customer experience. In addition, Branch’s growth strategy includes an increased focus on global expansion and strategic partnerships with major players such as Apple, Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Spotlight Mobile Network and News Corp UK & Ireland.
This latest funding round demonstrates the impact of strategic investment decisions by helping this leading mobile tech startup accelerate growth while growing its competitive advantage by leveraging industry-leading platforms and partnerships worldwide.
Discussion of $300 million funding round
Branch Metrics, a mobile deep linking and analytics platform, has secured a massive $300 million funding round, led by DST Global. This recent move quintuples their original $60 million raise in February 2016. In addition, the deal constitutes the second-largest capital injection for an enterprise software firm that year; increasing the total funding to a stunning $470 million.
Notably, Branch Metrics’ valuation also quadrupled, with the now 8-year old company being valued at over $1 billion according to reports by TechCrunch. Investors are likely attracted due to Branch Metrics’ ability to track and attribute over 26 billion places visited monthly on mobile devices and its 800% growth in revenue over the preceding 5 years. As a result of this new influx of cash, Branch CEO Alex Austin reported that they have sufficient funds to complete their mission without monetizing away valuable user data.
With such a huge financial boost under its belt, it’s clear that Branch Metrics will continue its impressive success for years to come–and investors will certainly be keeping an eye on what’s surely one of tech’s most promising companies as it even further disrupts the open source market.
Branch Metrics’ History
Branch Metrics is a startup founded in 2014 by three former Google engineers, which offers a mobile deep-linking solution. The company raised $18 million in 2015, and $35 million in 2017, and recently obtained a $300 million funding round to quadruple its valuation.
Let’s explore the history of Branch Metrics to better understand its success.
Company’s founding
Branch Metrics was founded in 2014 by Mada Seghete, Mike Molinet, and Alex Austin. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, California, with additional offices in San Francisco and London. Founders Seghete and Molinet had previously started a business together – Appuri – which they sold in early 2011. In late summer 2013, the pair joined engineering veteran Alex Austin to invent the Branch Metrics deep linking platform.
The company launched its product publicly at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in September 2014, and began working with several enterprise customers shortly afterward. Beginning in early 2015 it grew quickly by providing deep linking (i.e., allowing users to be connected to specific ads or products within an app without needing to install it). By June 2015 Branch had worked with 150 enterprise companies including Lyft, AirBnB, Pinterest and Shazam on deep linking projects. From there the company focused on app marketing analytics before expanding into mobile commerce more broadly with its attribution platform Unified App Links (UUL).
In January 2016 the company closed US$35 million Series B funding round from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Playground Global, B Capital Group (co-founded by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin) and I2BF Digital Ventures. Then in May 2017 Branch Metrics secured US$60 million Series C led by NEA bringing total investments raised to nearly US$95 million. One year later Branch reached another significant milestone when it announced its $300 million Series D from investors including NEA and existing investors Lead Edge Capital along with new investors Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and Nomura Holdings Inc. ‘s venture arm. This brings the total amount raised to US$395 million until present day efforts are included, pushing that figure further up past $400 million!
Early successes
Branch Metrics has had an impressive history of growth and success since its inception in 2014. The company was founded by Alex Austin, Mada Seghete and Mike Molinet to solve the current mobile link sharing problem – at the time there were no adequate solutions available to users.
Following the company’s launch, Branch Metrics gained over a dozen integrations with leading brands such as Airbnb, Airbnb Eats, Postmates, Nectar and more. This initial success led to their Series A funding from New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in October 2015, which raised $15 million for the startup.
The company then doubled down on their success by investing heavily in innovative technologies such as deep linking, web-to-app attribution and holistic analytics tools for mobile growth teams. By the following year (2016), Branch Metrics had already tripled their customer base with acquisition from Google Analytics and Optimizely – leading to even further successes in BRANCH OUT 2017 where they hosted their user conference in San Francisco.
Today Branch Metrics is now on track to quadruple its valuation after closing a $300 million round of funding at a valuation of $1 billion — making it one of only 20 ‘unicorns’ based out of Silicon Valley.
Recent milestones
Branch Metrics is a leading mobile company providing solutions to power seamless omnichannel experiences, personalise content and unify attribution for the world’s leading brands. Founded in 2014, the company has grown immensely thanks to strategic partnerships and product offerings.
Over the past few years, Branch Metrics has achieved several key milestones:
- In October 2018, Branch Metrics announced it raised $125 million in its series D round of funding at a valuation of over $1 billion, highlighting rapid company growth and demonstrating investor confidence.
- The following year in April 2019, Branch established a strategic relationship with Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory Business-to-Consumer (B2C), helping customers quickly onboard new users with secure passwordless authentication.
- In January 2021, Branch quadrupled its valuation to more than $4 billion in its $300 million series E funding round. This brings their total funding to almost half a billion dollars since inception.
- March 2021 marked Branch’s first ever Connect event featuring biggest names from across Mobile Growth, Product and Engineering worlds. Presenters included representatives from Reddit, AirBnB and many more industry leaders.
The $300 Million Funding Round
Branch Metrics, the mobile attribution analytics startup, surged to new heights with its recent funding round of $300 million. This investment shows the investors’ immense confidence in the company, with the valuation of the company quadrupling post the funding round.
Let’s take a closer look at this funding round and its implications.
Details of the round
In April of this year, Branch Metrics announced it had raised over $300 million in a round to quadruple its valuation. This brings the total amount of capital the company has raised since the 2013 founding to more than $480 million.
Bessemer Venture Partners, Kinnevik and Sunley House Capital Management led the round. Other investors included Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Times Internet, Allianz Life Ventures, and Tal Capital. This is a particularly impressive public round due to the sheer size of the investment and being oversubscribed by potential investors showing confidence in the company’s future.
This capital increase will help Branch Metrics better develop its product into new markets while continuing to provide industry leaders with solutions to their customer engagement needs. Most notably, this funding will enable enhancements across powerful deep-linking analytics products like App Links and Tuners. These are designed to help marketers create campaigns that connect deep within an app without having individual links for each platform.
The larger round equips Branch Metrics with resources necessary to move ahead on its expansion plans while taking advantage of trendy technologies like artificial intelligence or A/B testing features that they can leverage off their new broader user base worldwide. In addition, Branch Metrics expects this money will position them well to grow organically through marketing initiatives and continue building strategic relationships with mobile gaming companies across Japan Egypt Mexico Vietnam and beyond for more global expansion efforts.
Valuation quadrupled
In October 2017, mobile marketing data provider Branch Metrics announced that it had raised a Series C funding round of $300 million. This amazing milestone tripled the previous Series B amount, and quadrupled its valuation to over $1 billion.
The funding was closed led by ICONIQ Capital, and included participation from NEA, Founders Fund and Greylock Partners. The strategic investment from Goldman Sachs’s Private Capital Investing Group also indicates how much the banking giant values big data analytics companies focused on the mobile marketing industry. In addition, numerous Silicon Valley venture capital firms such as Battery Ventures, Pejman Mar Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and Social Capital also participated.
This is a huge success for Branch Metrics and a sign of tremendous growth for the whole mobile marketing industry. This record-breaking infusion of capital will further solidify the company’s position in providing app developers with powerful engagement solutions essential for today’s exponentially growing mobile marketplaces. It will also help them expand their product offering and rapidly increase their user base worldwide to become an even more essential component of app development success in multiple app markets.
Impact of the investment
Branch Metrics, a mobile deep linking and marketing platform, recently raised a whopping $300 million in its latest funding round. This sizable investment has enabled the company to quadruple its valuation, cementing its place as one of the most promising up-and-coming mobile marketing solutions.
Most funds came from private equity firms NEA and Bowery Capital, which have expressed their confidence in Branch Metrics’ potential to dominate the mobile deep linking and marketing space. In particular, investors were enthused by Branch’s recent acquisition of Radius Intelligence, which provides them with even more tools to target customers based on their lifestyle habits and interests, thus providing an even more comprehensive solution for app developers to optimise their engagement and monetization efforts.
The investment also benefits consumers — Branch plans to use its new capital injection to expand internationally through offices in Asia and Europe, further enhancing the availability of its powerful platform worldwide. Additionally, it will broaden their product suite with consumer-facing products that use advanced algorithms such as machine learning for predictive analytics and personalised recommendations.
By significantly increasing its user base around the world from retailers both large and small through smarter consumer segmentation based on detailed customer data — while at the same time setting up operations in multiple countries — it is safe to say that this new injection of capital will spell success for Branch Metrics in terms of providing innovative deep linking solutions for businesses looking to expand their presence on mobile platforms.
Future Plans
Branch Metrics’ recent $300 million investment round has led to quadrupling the mobile marketing platform’s valuation. With such a significant increase in capitalization, Branch Metrics must now focus on plans.
Where will this new funding take the company? First, let’s take a look at Branch Metrics’ plans for the future.
Expansion of product offerings
With its recent $300 million funding round, Branch Metrics has doubled its goal of tripling its valuation. With this growth in value and resources, the company plans to expand its product offerings to continue serving its customer base with cutting-edge tools and services.
As the leader in mobile deep linking for digital marketing, Branch Metrics plans to enhance customer experiences across platforms by developing the ability to offer an all-in-one engagement platform for connected applications and devices. Additionally, the company intends to increase research and development into new technologies, such as deep links for virtual reality (VR).
Branch Metrics also hopes to increase innovation within their customer data platform, allowing companies to see how users interact in digital ecosystems across apps, browsers and other devices. In addition, they plan to invest further in technologies like customer segmentation, which will help customers define their target audiences better by combining data science and machine learning.
The company’s founders have also mentioned that they intend to use this funding round as a platform to continue expanding into new markets while building product offerings that serve customers better. In addition, these investments will ensure that Branch Metrics remains a leader in mobile deep linking technologies.
Expansion of customer base
Branch Metrics has revealed its plans to utilise the $300 million funding raised in the recent Series D round as part of its strategy to expand its customer base. The company, a leading provider of mobile deep linking technology, aims to invest in product and engineering and double-down on sales and marketing initiatives.
Specifically, these investments will allow the company to continue introducing new features and strengthening existing ones based on customer feedback. Additionally, the funds will be used to expand the number of clients utilising their mobile deep linking service by deepening relationships with existing customers, building their partner network, expanding their international presence and increasing business development initiatives. By doing so, Branch Metrics will drive greater adoption of their technology worldwide.
Plans to further develop technology
Branch Metrics recently announced plans to further invest into shared offerings and technology advancements with a $300 million round of funding. The new funding saw the company’s valuation quadruple from its previous estimated worth of $600 million to over $2 billion.
Having already established its deep linking and mobile measurement technology, Branch Metrics plans to focus on solutions that bring scalability, reliability, and transparency to their partners. Branch will also ramp up research and development on their core product suite in the coming quarters. These efforts will help them move the mobile industry forward by introducing more sophisticated tools to reduce deep link friction and create seamless user experiences across devices. Furthermore, this new round of funding will enable them to expand their product offering with data-driven insights programs that empower marketers by helping them understand customer behaviour more effectively and making marketing calendars easier to manage.
Finally, Branch is also looking towards developing solutions that tackle cross-device identity matching, enabling marketers to target the right audiences in a way that is not currently possible. By tying together user data from various global sources, marketers can ensure cohesive campaigns even when users span multiple channels or platforms. With these advancements in technology, branches can help businesses quickly access larger market audiences without having market limitations due to device identity issues.
