Deep linking startup Branch Metrics, Inc. has raised $35 million Series B in a round led by Founders Fund that included New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Pejman Mar Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Zach Coelius, Ben Narasin, and Madrona Venture Group.

Founded in 2014, Branch offers a deep linking and business analytics platform for mobile app developers that generates smart deep links that pass data to facilitate and track conversions and user engagement through targeted communications.

The platform allows app developers and marketers to move away from expensive paid install campaigns to new, lower cost marketing channels for mobile apps such as email, SMS, and social marketing campaigns, and comes with a dashboard that displays and tracks data such as user behavior, K-factor (the growth rate of the app), campaign performance, and the lifetime value of customers.

Data collected can be used to build reports that analyze organic growth, and return on investment when it comes to advertising campaigns.

Branch has built deep linking technology for major companies and mobile app developers including Pinterest, Redfin, Hotel Tonight, Buzzfeed, and Jet, who are said to use it to make app content more easily shared and discovered; when a link is clicked the deep links take the consumer directly to the correct content for an installed app, and in the event an app is not installed,will take them to the right page after they have installed the app.

“Without deep linking, consumers experience a start and stop experience that discourages downloads and creates barriers that reduce engagement and user retention,” the company said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE. “With Branch, app developers double user engagement, reduce acquisition costs by 30 percent, and obtain nearly double the retention rate.”

Growing company

The stats for Branch are highly impressive, and show a rapidly growing company, with deep linking provided for 1 billion users, up from 6 million twelve months ago, with its API now handling more than 25 billion calls per month, up from 780 million last January.

A staggering 1.6 billion deep links have been created by the company’s partners, up from 20 million in February 2015, and all of this is underpinned by Branch growing a mobile community that now has over 10,000 members and has held 146 meetups, lunch and learns and hackathons across the world.

Including the new round Branch has raised $53 million to date.

The company said it would use the new funding to further accelerate the adoption of its deep linking technology and to create the next generation of app and app content discovery products unlocked by deep linking.

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