Doron Reuveni Raises $43 Million For The Recently Renamed Applause

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Applause  (formerly uTest) allows suitability  testing of  apps for any device, including Smartphones, and smart home devices

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Doron Reuveni,  CEO and co-founder of Applause

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Doron Reuveni,  CEO and co-founder of Applause, which tests an apps compatibility for a wide range of  devices, in either an Android, iPad, HTML 5 or a variety of other platforms has succeeded in raising an additional $43 million in its Series E financing round.

The Series E funding was led by merchant bankers, Goldman Sachs, with existing  investors Egan-Managed Capital, Longworth Venture Partners, Mesco, QuestMark Partners and  Scale Venture Partners, also participating in the round, which brings total financing for the company to date to over $80 million.

Applause was founded under the name of UTest, in 2007  in Boston,   Massachusetts by Reuveni and Roy Solomon, who is Vice President in charge of  product management. As well as their offices in Boston, Applause  also maintains a development center in Herzliya, Israel. The company officially changed their name from UTest to Applause in December 2013.

With a client base ranging from  customers such as  Amazon.com, Box Inc., Google Inc., Inc., Rolex S.A., as well as some key players in the auto manufacturing industry, Applause also enjoys a close working relationship with no less than 100, 000 freelance professional apps testers throughout the world, through “crowdsourcing”.

Irrespective of their size or their location, Applause’s customer’s number around 2, 500, with each one of them, according to Doron Reuveni, able to take advantage of  the opportunity to  test their apps  “on real devices in the hands of real consumers in actual markets, rather than in a device laboratory or other limited setting. “

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On  releasing news of the latest funding round, Reuveni explained that  Applause plans to use the recent capital injection  to expand their footprint in Europe, while at the same time initiating an intensive marketing campaign to increase  brand awareness for Applause, as well as creating known app life cycle management tools specially developed for  to suit the needs of coders, engineers as well as  digital marketers.

Applause  also plans to set aside some of the funding for acquisitions, having already   purchased Polish company Apphance in the summer of 2012, paying just over $1 million. , According to Reuveni, Applause expects  to take over  at least two companies in the apps sector during 2014.

According to a spokesperson for  Goldman Sachs,   with this latest round of funding allied to their ambitious expansion plans, Applause are on the proper tracks for reaching their  goal to becoming  the first crowdsourcing company to file an IPO, probably within the next two to three years

Since its founding in 2007, uTest has shown remarkable growth that would inspire Applause from even the toughest of audiences, while  expanding the number of people it employs from 11 to more than 120 employees, with turnover expanding five fold in the the company’s last financial year of 2012/ 2013.

In 2012, uTest  finished in eight place on 2013 Forbes’ list of the Most Promising Companies in America list as well as winning the State of Massachusetts  TLC  most promising Private Company of the Year  for 2014

Doron Reuveni also finished as a finalist in  the  Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year award for 2012.

Doron Reuveni is a holder of a Batchelor of Science degree  in Computer Science and Information Systems Engineering from the Technion University, Israel.

After completing his army service and university degree, Reuveni held a number of management positions within the Israeli Ministry of Defense, before joining the Florida based security software developers  Enigma Software in 1994, where he was initially  responsible for managing their IT and Customer Support Departments, eventually heading  their  Systems Engineering and Architecture groups.

Reuveni left  Enigma Software to found Re.D Consulting,  advising a number of enterprise companies  on raising capital,  market strategies, helping to provide  company direction, as well as developing  product roadmaps and providing advice on technology development.

Apart from his busy work schedule, Doron finds the time for keep his fitness levels up, having taken part in  the Boston Marathon every year for the past nine years.