Apptimize

Apptimize operates as an AI-powered customer experience platform, providing tools for A/B testing and feature release management across a variety of digital channels, including native mobile (iOS and Android), web, and over-the-top (OTT) platforms. The company was founded in 2013 by Nancy Hua and Jeremy Orlow and originated from their participation in the Y Combinator accelerator program. Hua, who served as CEO, brought expertise in quantitative strategies from her time at GETCO, while Orlow had a background in software engineering at Google, where he worked on the Chrome browser. The initial idea for Apptimize stemmed from Orlow's own search for a mobile A/B testing solution. The company secured multiple rounds of funding from investors including Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, and US Venture Partners, raising a total of over $18 million.

The company's business model is based on a monthly subscription, offering different pricing plans for its SaaS platform. Apptimize caters to product teams and marketers in industries such as retail, media, travel, and finance. Notable clients have included The Wall Street Journal, Glassdoor, and HotelTonight. In August 2019, Apptimize was acquired by Airship, a customer engagement company, to integrate its experimentation capabilities into Airship's broader platform. While continuing to operate and support its existing platform, the acquisition aimed to create a unified solution for optimizing the entire user journey across messaging and digital properties.

The core of Apptimize's offering is its A/B testing functionality, which allows businesses to experiment with different versions of their app's features, user interface elements, and content to determine what drives better user engagement and conversion. A key feature is the Visual Editor, which enables non-technical users to make changes to apps without writing code or requiring an app store update. For developers, the platform provides programmatic testing for more complex experiments. Another significant component is feature flagging and controlled rollouts, which mitigate risk by allowing companies to release new features to a small segment of users before a full launch. The platform also offers detailed analytics, audience targeting and segmentation, and personalization tools to tailor user experiences. Keywords: mobile A/B testing, feature flagging, cross-platform optimization, user experience testing, feature release management, mobile app experimentation, SaaS, Nancy Hua, Jeremy Orlow, Airship acquisition, conversion rate optimization, personalization, audience segmentation, digital experience platform, OTT testing, web optimization, product experimentation, native app testing, visual editor, programmatic testing