Tech Startup Button In $20M Series B

New York-based technology startup Button, founded in 2014, connects the mobile economy via its marketplace, allowing mobile apps to find and integrate with one another.

Yesterday (Jan. 25), Button announced that it had closed a $20 million Series B venture capital funding round reportedly led by Norwest Venture Partners, along with participation from existing investors Redpoint, DCM and Greycroft. To date, Button has raised over $34.5 million in funding over four rounds.

Mike Jaconi, founder of CEO of Button, was quoted by TechCrunch as saying: “In a world where the duopoly of Facebook and Google are seen as the only two successful mobile acquisition channels, we unlock the intent that’s distributed across the entire mobile landscape beyond those two platforms. We provide an efficient channel for app acquisition for our merchants that taps into the distributed intent across a range of publisher partners.”

Button has a number of diverse clients, including Conde Nast Traveler, The Huffington Post, Jet, StubHub, Open Table and eBay, among many others.

Jared Hyatt, an investor at Norwest Venture Partners, was quoted as saying: “We are excited to partner with Mike and the Button team to help them achieve their goal of creating a transactional marketplace that is beneficial to all. The decline of traditional advertising in mobile proves publishers need new and creative ways to monetize their content and their users. Button’s Marketplace allows them to do this with a phenomenal user experience. By giving users the consumption experience they want, publishers can generate meaningful new revenue for their businesses.”

Perhaps the most notable example of the startup’s integration offering so far comes from 2015’s integration work with Foursquare and Uber. The three companies joined together to incorporate Uber’s button function into Foursquare. Consumers using Foursquare to find a restaurant can use the integration to pull up the Uber app with the restaurant’s address already entered into the ride information.

Button takes a percentage of sales made across its commerce platform, known as DeepLink. In addition, the company’s partners get a commission for helping garner new business for other on-demand services.