Kony Solutions aims for sales and marketing expansion as well as further research and development with their newly acquired $19.1 million in Series A financing. The investment was led by Insight Venture Partners that provided an initial funding of about $13.4 million.
Kony’s CEO Raj Koneru shares their excitement, and more information about the company in our recent e-interview:
Who are your competitors and how are you different from them?
While there are many mobile solution providers in the marketplace today, Kony offers unique Write Once, Run Everywhere technology and a full suite of support services to consumer-facing companies. Kony’s technology is matchless in its ability to allow applications to access the best possible features of each operating system. Rather than a least common denominator approach, the Kony Mobile Application Platform enables applications to be optimized for individual device platforms and exposes extensive platform specific properties and development options, enabling applications to provide the richest possible experience on each device.
What percentage of your marketing budget is spent on the following?
Kony engages in an optimized mix of marketing initiatives, including advertising, social media marketing, SEO, public relations and direct marketing.
What marketing tactic has given you the highest ROI? What percentage ROI do you get back on this?
As we mentioned above, we engage in an integrated mix of marketing activities and programs. In order to maximize ROI, it’s key to identify and understand your target market. The more specific and well-defined your target market, the more ROI you can drive from your marketing initiatives. In mobile, an emerging and dynamic market, it’s best to diversify your marketing activities in order to learn what will garner the greatest return and do more of it!
What do you plan to spend your new funding on? Product development? Marketing?
The initial tranche of $13.4 million will enable Kony Solutions to expand its research and development related to the Kony Mobile Application Platform™, which serves millions of users worldwide. In addition, the funding will be used to accelerate the global rollout of Kony’s sales and marketing.
If this is your first round of financing and you’re the CEO, how many hours did you put into working on getting your financing? Was that taking up the most of your day?
Although this is our first institutional round of funding, I have self-funded Kony since I founded the company in 2007. We were cash-flow positive prior to the funding. As mentioned above, this funding is to help us keep pace with the hyper-growth happening in the mobile market.
If you are the CEO, what are your biggest challenges?
One of Kony’s biggest challenges Kony faces is mastering how to clearly differentiate our mobile solution from point solutions/verticalized mobile apps/niche developers. No other company has a mobile platform with the breadth and depth of Kony Solutions. More than 35 global brands have chosen Kony as a competitive advantage in mobile, but we are still the “best kept secret.” Another challenge we face is not growing fast enough to keep pace with the demand for a comprehensive, future-proof technology platform.
How many employees do you have?
450 employees globally
When were you founded?
2007 by Raj Koneru
How much did your revenue increase (if any) this year over last?
Our fiscal year has not ended yet, but we are anticipating a triple-digit growth rate.
Read more about Kony’s recent financing success in their press release.
Kony Solutions To Expand Its Reach Through Newly Acquired $19.1M In Series A Funding
Kony’s CEO Raj Koneru shares their excitement, and more information about the company in our recent e-interview:
Who are your competitors and how are you different from them?
While there are many mobile solution providers in the marketplace today, Kony offers unique Write Once, Run Everywhere technology and a full suite of support services to consumer-facing companies. Kony’s technology is matchless in its ability to allow applications to access the best possible features of each operating system. Rather than a least common denominator approach, the Kony Mobile Application Platform enables applications to be optimized for individual device platforms and exposes extensive platform specific properties and development options, enabling applications to provide the richest possible experience on each device.
What percentage of your marketing budget is spent on the following?
Kony engages in an optimized mix of marketing initiatives, including advertising, social media marketing, SEO, public relations and direct marketing.
What marketing tactic has given you the highest ROI? What percentage ROI do you get back on this?
As we mentioned above, we engage in an integrated mix of marketing activities and programs. In order to maximize ROI, it’s key to identify and understand your target market. The more specific and well-defined your target market, the more ROI you can drive from your marketing initiatives. In mobile, an emerging and dynamic market, it’s best to diversify your marketing activities in order to learn what will garner the greatest return and do more of it!
What do you plan to spend your new funding on? Product development? Marketing?
The initial tranche of $13.4 million will enable Kony Solutions to expand its research and development related to the Kony Mobile Application Platform™, which serves millions of users worldwide. In addition, the funding will be used to accelerate the global rollout of Kony’s sales and marketing.
If this is your first round of financing and you’re the CEO, how many hours did you put into working on getting your financing? Was that taking up the most of your day?
Although this is our first institutional round of funding, I have self-funded Kony since I founded the company in 2007. We were cash-flow positive prior to the funding. As mentioned above, this funding is to help us keep pace with the hyper-growth happening in the mobile market.
If you are the CEO, what are your biggest challenges?
One of Kony’s biggest challenges Kony faces is mastering how to clearly differentiate our mobile solution from point solutions/verticalized mobile apps/niche developers. No other company has a mobile platform with the breadth and depth of Kony Solutions. More than 35 global brands have chosen Kony as a competitive advantage in mobile, but we are still the “best kept secret.” Another challenge we face is not growing fast enough to keep pace with the demand for a comprehensive, future-proof technology platform.
How many employees do you have?
450 employees globally
When were you founded?
2007 by Raj Koneru
How much did your revenue increase (if any) this year over last?
Our fiscal year has not ended yet, but we are anticipating a triple-digit growth rate.
Read more about Kony’s recent financing success in their press release.