With more than 15 million Australians now owning a smartphone and some 12 million owning a tablet device (according to the 2015 IAB Australia and Nielsen Mobile Ratings Report), consumer’s expectations for mobile apps to give the best user experience possible keep rising by the day.
That is why Israeli-founded Perfecto Mobile, following a new Series E round of $49 million, has chosen Australia as one of its first international markets for the next phase of its international expansion.
To lead that growth, the company has appointed former RSA Security senior executive Gary Mitchell (pictured) as Director, Asia Pacific & Japan, based out of Sydney. In addition to Gary, Perfecto has hired two sales representatives and a sales engineer.
The $49 million investment came from new investor Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), with continued participation from existing investors FTV Capital, Carmel Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners and Vertex Ventures.
This new round means the company has raised more than $128 million since 2007 and employs more than 250 people based in Boston, Tel Aviv and in its new markets.
What exactly does Perfecto do?
Perfecto, founded in 2006, offers a cloud-based test lab, called Continuous Quality Lab™, that lets organisations test apps on real devices and against real end user conditions.
This means development teams can automate functional testing, performance testing and monitoring to increase the speed of release cycles and improve quality.
Clients rely on Perfecto to deliver optimal mobile app functionality and end user experiences, ensuring their brand’s reputation, establishing loyal customers, and continually attracting new users.
With local customers already using the test lab, Perfecto is set to soon announce its Australian data centre partner, as it targets the telecommunications, retail and financial services sectors.
“Today’s consumers expect and depend on high-quality digital experiences when interacting with brands via the Web, mobile apps and IoT devices,” said Eran Yaniv, CEO of Perfecto.
“To ensure that quality, Perfecto has developed solutions that help brands deliver those experiences, such as Continuous Quality Lab.”
Gary said, “In today’s connected mobile world, a digital engagement strategy is now critical to enterprise business success.
“In simple terms, that means there is no room for mobile apps to fail and as the pressure to meet customer expectations rise, so does ensuring the quality of each digital experience, especially across mobile channels.”
How is Perfecto doing so far?
The company currently has more than 1,500 customers, including 50 per cent of the Fortune 500 across the banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications and media industries.
Perfecto’s innovation product roadmap was evident recently when the company launched the Wind Tunnel™, which enables automated testing against real user conditions, and reports that more than 1.2 million tests run monthly in its Continuous Quality Lab.
Its customer base has rapidly grown in the past year to include leading brands like Discover, Weather.com and Sky and is seeing record expansion within existing customers.
In fact, the company is now working with nine of the 10 world’s most valuable brands, as listed in the 2015 BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, recently released by WPP and Millward Brown.
