GetJar, the world’s second-largest applications store, just announced a series B funding of $11 million from Accel Partners.
Second in volume only to Apple’s app store, GetJar has seen over a billion downloads of 65,000 applications. Its focus on cross-platform sales (iPhone apps included) has positioned it to take advantage of the burgeoning app war between Apple and Google.
Drew Ianni, former chairman of ad:tech and founder of AppNation (where GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs will be giving the inaugural keynote), believes the investment to be a good indication that growth in app adoption is likely to continue.
“(T)he rare exclusive, all-in investment of a first-tier, high-caliber VC firm such as Accel only further validates the long-term market opportunity that GetJar, and the app economy as a whole, represent.”
The investment, said Laurs, will be used “for aggressive global expansion and product development.” It intends to expand its offerings for open smart phone platforms like Android, Blackberry and Symbian.
“In the past year, GetJar has tripled the number of employees, quadrupled the number of downloads per month, signed partnerships with key players such as Sprint and maintained its profitability despite a challenging economic environment.”
Accel’s other Web investments have included Admob, Baidu, ComScore, Etsy, Facebook, Macromedia, Real Networks and Zimbra.
