HeadSpin, a mobile app testing startup, raises $20 million

Manish Lachwani, CEO of
HeadSpin
HeadSpin

• HeadSpin, a startup that creates a platform to help
  developers more easily test apps and sites on mobile devices,
  has raised $20 million in Series B financing.
• This three-year-old startup is now worth $500
  million.
• Co-founder and CEO Manish Lachwani drew on his
  experiences from Google, Zynga and other companies to solve the
  difficulties he faced when testing mobile apps. 

Over 

three-fourths

of Americans own smartphones, which means
that it’s incredibly important for tech companies to nail their
mobile apps. But testing those apps to make sure they’re working
correctly can be a hassle.

HeadSpin, a Silicon Valley
startup, allows developers to easily test, debug and monitor
mobile apps and sites in real-time on actual devices. Oftentimes,
developers use a simulator on their computers to test these apps,
but even then, there might be unexpected bugs on the actual
mobile app when used by real customers on a real phone.

And investors see potential for
this idea: On Tuesday, HeadSpin announced $20 million in Series B
financing. With this funding, HeadSpin’s valuation is now north
of $500 million, just three years in.

As an engineer, HeadSpin
co-founder and CEO Manish Lachwani has worked on a wide variety
of projects, from online games at
Zynga to
YouTube and
Chrome at Google. But one problem stood out to him: testing
apps. And it was “nearly impossible” to pinpoint why mobile apps
sometimes failed.

“There was no way of
understanding whether something would work or not,” Lachwani told
Business Insider. “That’s where a number of these games failed.
We had a very hard time.”

HeadSpin can solve these problems
within five minutes, Lachwani says, and being able to test apps
can save developers both time and money.

With the funding, HeadSpin plans
to incorporate more automation into the app to identify
high-priority issues for apps.

“All this learning helped us
create a platform that helps you understand what to fix prior to
launch,” Lachwani said. “Developers can see, this is where the
problem is.”