test IO, a leading self-service crowdtesting platform for app and web developers, today announced its $5 million Series A funding from Turn/River Capital, a San Francisco-based firm that invests in growing technology, web and SaaS companies. The funding will be used to accelerate growth, including its U.S. market launch and company-wide rebrand.
Referencing software development testing, Forrester sees 'an unprecedented demand for speed, while quality, of course, is a given; as a result, old ways of testing don't cut it anymore. Agile and DevOps demand huge changes to the way application development and delivery (AD&D) and quality assurance (QA) teams test. Whether they are developing for the Web or for mobile first, they must transition to continuous testing.'
'Software development continues to grow exponentially, fueled by a global demand for mobile and cloud applications by both B2C and B2B brands,' said Dominic Ang, founder and managing partner of Turn/River Capital. 'test IO's self-service approach to continuous testing through a crowd of thousands of expert testers has a distinct advantage, as speed and flexibility are top priorities for application development and deployment today. We seek to partner with companies like test IO that have grown primarily through bootstrapping, as they seek to accelerate their growth and expand their markets.'
test IO enables developers, quality assurance personnel and product managers to connect to a crowd of thousands of qualified software testers. test IO's self-service approach to crowdtesting delivers the insights of human testing at the speed and around-the-clock availability of automated testing. test IO's testers are experts in examining mobile apps and websites and will discover bugs before real customers do.
As developers embrace a mobile-first approach, mobile testing is a top priority. However, it's challenging due to the variety of devices, operating systems and versions. test IO makes this process easy, and 70% of its tests are for mobile apps. The test IO crowd also provides input on workflow, graphical user interface (GUI) and usability, so developers can continuously learn to create better applications.
'Bringing software to market before competitors is critical to our bottom line, but finding bugs before our customers do is critical to our reputation,' said Michael Downing, CEO of Tout, an online video platform for publishers, content creators and advertisers. 'test IO's self-service platform saves us valuable resources critical to our agile development process. Its crowd of testers continuously uncovers bugs and usability issues that would normally take much longer to identify internally, allowing us to launch applications on time and worry free.'
Originally founded in Germany as testCloud by a team of veteran technologists and developers, test IO has worked with clients such as Volkswagen, Red Bull, Thomas Cook, Innogames, Jack Wolfskin and others. The company rebranded as test IO in conjunction with its U.S. capital raise and launch.
'Today's economy is driven by mobile apps and software, and developers at startups all the way to Fortune 500 companies seek faster, cost effective ways to test software through the entire development process,' said Thomas Gruderich, co-founder of test IO. 'To meet this demand, our priority is to provide a platform that developers can easily manage themselves, yet tap into the speed, quality and efficiency of crowdtesting. This funding and move to the U.S. will enable us to build on the great momentum we started in Europe and position us to capture further market-share within the massive app and software development landscape.'
For information on pricing and opportunities to join the community of over 20,000 professional testers across 78 countries who are paid to test software and find bugs, visit http://www.test.io.
About test IO
test IO pioneered and specializes in Continuous Testing for agile software development. More than 500 developers, quality assurance personnel, product managers and others rely on the power of test IO's self-service platform to connect to a crowd of over 20,000 qualified software testers worldwide. Originally founded in Germany as testCloud in 2011, the company is headquartered in Berlin, Germany with offices in San Francisco. For more information, visit http://www.test.io and follow on Facebook and Twitter.