Last week mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) vendor FeedHenry was acquired by Red Hat, continuing a busy series of acquisitions in the space. Previous deals in the space include the acquisition of Parse by Facebook and that of StackMob by PayPal. All this frothiness is happening for a reason: mobile is the way that modern enterprise IT is primarily going to be delivered. Thus tools and platforms that helps enterprise deliver on the mobile opportunity are super valuable. And where there is value for customers, there’s plenty of money for vendors to make. By extension, where vendors can make money, investment dollars are sure to flow.
So it’s timely, and unsurprising, that high-profile MBaaS vendor Kinvey has scooped up $10.8 million by way of a Series B investment. The company, which had previously raised $7 million from Avalon Ventures and Atlas Venture, has added NTT DOCOMO and Verizon Ventures to those previous funders. The funding was likely made significantly easier since Kinvey’s move to embrace private MBaaS. That move has made the platform attractive to larger enterprise customers and Kinvey has attracted customers such as
VMware is actually using Kinvey for some of their own mobile applications – this is particularly interesting since Pivotal, a spin out that is still partially owned by
With all this activity in the MBaaS space, it’s difficult to know if there is a current over-exuberance that will be punished in the future, or if there is enough business, or enough potential acquirers, to offer a good exit for everyone playing in the space. Needless to say the VC community is bullish about the opportunity – time will tell whether they’re right.
