SAN MATEO, Calif., July 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Applitools, the leader in AI-based Automated Visual Testing and Monitoring for mobile, web, and native apps, today announced it has raised an $8 Million round led by Sierra Ventures, with participation by Bessemer Venture partners and existing investors Magma Venture Partners, iAngels and La Maison. With this current round, Applitools’ funding reaches $15 Million. Former SVP at Salesforce and Slack CMO/CRO Bill Macaitis is also joining the Applitools Advisory Board.

Applitools launched its SaaS offering in January 2015 and since then, usage has constantly grown 25% quarter-over-quarter. In 2016, MRR multiplied 3X over 2015 and similar growth is expected in 2017. Today millions of visual tests are performed with Applitools each week. Applitools is trusted by companies of all sizes, including Fortune 100 customers in a variety of verticals such as Banking, Software, Online Retail, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, and more. Applitools 200+ customers include household names like American Express, Intuit, MasterCard, Bose, Sony, Salesforce, Slack, ServiceNow, Twilio, Wix and Siemens.

“We are very pleased to have Sierra Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners join our existing investors in this new round of funding,” said Gil Sever, CEO of Applitools. “Their support validates our vision and gives us the capital we need to continue our mission – to bring AI-based Automated Visual Analysis to application test automation, application monitoring, and collaboration for automation engineers, DevOps, developers, and digital transformation leaders that need to adapt to Continuous Delivery. It’s been an exciting few years since inception and the new funding will allow us to continue expanding our product offering and grow even faster.”

As part of the financing round, Tim Guleri, Managing Director of Sierra Ventures, joins the Applitools Board. “Tim’s years of entrepreneurial leadership in taking companies through the next stages of growth and execution, combined with his vast network of partners and customers, make him a valuable addition to the Applitools Board,” added Gil Sever.

“In today’s trend toward mass scale digitization across all verticals, a company’s Application User Interface is its proverbial ‘front door’, and is key to staying competitive,” said Tim Guleri, Managing Director of Sierra Ventures. “The breadth of device/browser combinations, coupled with continuously shortening development and release cycles, requires DevOps teams to fully automate the development and runtime as part of their digital transformation. Applitools is the only company that has used Artificial Intelligence at scale to provide a proven and robust solution for this acute pain-point. I am sure that their unique technology and execution can make them the leader of this new and exciting market segment.”

Applitools allows Test Automation, DevOps and Development teams to release software flawlessly and automatically through its SaaS Visual Testing and Monitoring product. Based on sophisticated image processing algorithms that mimic the human eye and brain, Applitools ensures that an app appears correctly and functions properly on all mobile devices, browsers, operating systems and screen sizes.

About Sierra Ventures
Founded in 1982 and investing its 11^th venture fund, Sierra Ventures is a privately held venture capital firm that invests in early-stage, high growth emerging technologies companies. Sierra Ventures is known for working closely with exceptional entrepreneurs to build world-class category defining companies. A few of Sierra Ventures recent successful exits include the IPOs of InvenSense, Sourcefire, AuthenTec, and the acquisitions of Ooyala (by Telstra), Nexgate (by Proofpoint), Greenplum (by EMC), DynamicOps (by VMWare) and Bina Technologies (by Roche). Sierra has also backed prominent technology companies including Intuit, Healtheon, Active Software, Micromuse and Teradata.  www.sierraventures.com

About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) is a $4B venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare technology startups around the world, from seed stage to growth. BVP funded the early stages of Blue Apron, Pinterest, Twitch, Periscope, Skype, among others, and helped build 117 IPOs including Twilio, Yelp, LinkedIn, Shopify, and Wix. Follow us @BessemerVP.

About Applitools
Applitools is on a mission to help Test Automation, DevOps and Development teams to release and monitor flawless mobile, web, and native apps in a fully automated way that enables Continuous Deployment. Founded in 2013, Applitools uses sophisticated AI-based image processing technology to ensure that an app appears correctly and functions properly on all mobile devices, browsers, operating systems and screen sizes. Applitools has more than 200+ customers from a range of verticals, including Fortune 100 companies in Banking, Software, Online Retail, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, and more. Applitools is based in San Mateo, California and Tel Aviv, Israel. For more information, please visit applitools.com.

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SOURCE Applitools