Getui, a Beijing-based third-party push notification service provider, has closed an eight-digit dollars of Series B financing led by SAIF Partners, with the participation of all existing Series A investors including U.S. venture firm WI Harper. According to the company, the proceeds will be used for research and development, marketing and branding.
Upon release of the funding news, Getui rolled out its 2.0 version “Smart Push”. Based on basic push notification features, Smart Push is enabled by a user tagging system to determine what their users need most of, and then, targeting notifications to specific groups to achieve the best notifying effect and avoid being intrusive and annoying to app users.
Getui is a push notification service targeted at both iOS and Android platforms, helping app developers to engage and reach their user bases more quickly and effectively. App developers can set a specific time to send notifications, which are presented in diverse forms of text, picture, and media that developers can select according to their needs.
Getui also offers data analytic reports that show metrics on how many of the notifications were clicked and opened, and which platform has a higher reaction rate, etc.
The company has an installed app users base of 2 billion, covering 600 million mobile devices and 80K app developers as of July 2014. Getui claimed it has occupied over 90% of the third-party notification service market in China. The startup is now working with clients like Weibo, PPTV, Changba, Boyaa and China Merchants Bank.
Getui is founded in 2010 by Fang Yi, a serial entrepreneur who started his entrepreneurial career in 2005. The company previously released Gexin, a free messaging tool recorded 17 million users by 2013. Like other phonebook-based messaging services, Gexin was trapped in development dilemma after the release of Tencent’s dominating IM app WeChat. The company then pivots its business focus to push notification and rolled out the namesake product Getui in March 2012.
Getui, by the way, just kicked off a program to boost the development of app startups. Any team with less than 5 million registered users or under RMB5 million (around US$ 806K) of funding can apply for its free service.
Of course, Getui is not the only player in this market. In addition to its major startup competitor JPush, big Chinese Internet companies, including Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba’s Umeng, are also offering push notification services to apps who use their developer-facing services.
image credit: Getui