Mobile apps can be fun to build, especially when they get traction with users. But there is a part of app development that often gets overlooked: testing. Yet it is critically important for success. If anything, users are highly sensitive to any issues with performance.
So, as should be no surprise, various testing companies have been attracting venture capital. And one of the latest is BlazeMeter, which has raised $6.5 million in a Series A round. The lead investor on the deal was YL Ventures (Glilot Capital Partners joined the financing as well).
BlazeMeter provides a full-blown solution for web and mobile performance testing. It is also open source – that is, developers can easily customize the system.
And yes, the company has been able to snag great customers like Adobe, Disney and Domino's Pizza. Then again, BlazeMeter runs tests that simulate the scale of 50 to over 1 million concurrent users. “We are seeing increasing usage by Fortune 100 companies,” said Alon Girmonsky, who is the founder and CEO of the company.
But when it comes to testing, the best approach is to make it an ongoing process. “With Agile Development,” said Alon, “it makes sense to have testing done throughout the process. We also make it easy with BlazeMeter. You can define and setup a test configuration in 10 minutes.”
Something else: There is no need to have a performance engineer do this. Instead, BlazeMeter is built for just about anyone to operate. “Your engineers can focus on other things that matter,” said Alon.
Interestingly enough, the Series A funding is the first capital raise since late 2011. Back then, Alon pulled off a seed financing of $1.2 million.
In other words, he has been able to build a sustainable business – a sign that BlazeMeter is solving a need in the marketplace. “When I started the business, I spent a lot of time evangelizing the importance of testing,” said Alon. “But nowadays, I don’t have too. Businesses realize that testing is critical and that it can be a differentiator.”
Tom Taulli (@ttaulli) serves on company boards and is also the author of several books on building and selling companies.
