Airship (company)
American mobile app messaging company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Airship (software company), formerly Urban Airship, is a San Francisco, California-based company founded in Portland, Oregon, that offers mobile customer experience and messaging services.[1] The company is best known for its push notification technology that enables businesses to deliver targeted messages to mobile app users.[2] In addition to push notifications, the company's software supports messaging across multiple digital channels, including SMS and in-app communications, as well as tools for analytics, experimentation, and automation.[3]
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| Type | Private Corporation |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 |
| Founder | Steven Osborn, Scott Kveton, Adam Lowry, Michael Richardson |
| Headquarters | |
| Products | Advertisements, Analytics |
| Website | www.airship.com |
As of November 2020[update], Airship has offices in Portland, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, New York City, London, Paris, New Delhi, Munich, and Singapore.[4]
History
In 2009, Urban Airship was founded by Steven Osborn, Scott Kveton, Adam Lowry, and Michael Richardson. The company received $1.1 million in Series A funding in February 2010,[5] and then received $5.4 million in Series B funding in November of the same year.[6] On November 5, 2011, Airship received $15.1 million in Series C funding from Salesforce.com, Intel, and Verizon, among others.[7]
On February 6, 2013, the company announced additional funding of $25 million from Foundry Group, Intel Capital, True Ventures and Verizon.[8] In October 2014, Airship announced another $12.1 million in Series D funding from existing investors.[9] In February 2015, the company picked up an additional $9 million in venture funding, bringing total funding to $67.6 million.[10] In September 2015, the company released Urban Airship Connect, a platform for collecting data from mobile apps and sharing it with other business systems.[11] In June 2018, Airship completed an F round of funding at $25 million led by Foundry Group.[12]
In July 2014, Scott Kveton stepped down as CEO. In October of that same year, Brett Caine was hired as CEO. Caine was previously the president of Citrix Online.[13] In November 2016, Airship launched two messaging APIs Open Channels and Open Profiles.[14]
In March 2018, Airship released interactive and automated in-app messages.[15] In June 2018, the company completed an F round of funding at $25 million led by Foundry Group.[16] In August 2018, Urban Airship introduced Boost, a service for delivering mobile notifications with reduced latency. During the 2018 FIFA World Cup final, the company reported a peak delivery rate of 400,000 notifications per second. Onefootball, a sports news platform, utilized the service to send more than five billion notifications during the tournament.[17] In September of the same year, Airship released beta SDK for iOS.[18]
In June 2019, the company rebranded as Airship (formally being Urban Airship).[19]
In 2025, Airship was included in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs.[20]
Acquisitions
Airship acquired SimpleGeo on October 31, 2011 for a reported $3.5 million.[21] Airship discontinued SimpleGeo services on March 31, 2012.[22]
In December 2012, Airship acquired Tello, another True Ventures-backed startup. Airship acquired Tello in an all-stock deal in order to integrate PassTools, Tello's Apple Passbook management product, into its current offering.[23]
The company purchased SMS commerce company, ReplyBuy in September 2020 for an undisclosed amount.[24]
In January 2019, Airship acquired Accenage, a larger mobile customer relationship management provider based in Paris.[25] In August 2019, Airship acquired Apptimize, a user experience testing company based in San Francisco, California.[26]
In 2022, Airship acquired Gummicube, an app store optimization company, adding Apple App Store and Google Play search data to its platform.[27]
