GetJar raises £14.4 million for open apps

Smartphone app developer GetJar has raised $25 million (£14.4 million) in a third round of funding to continue development of its open app store.

Hedge fund Tiger Global Management led the Series C fundraising for the Silicon Valley-based company, which has offices in London and Lithuania. Existing investor Accel Partners also contributed to the round, according to a company statement.

GetJar claims to operate the world’s largest open app store with more than 1.5 billion downloads recorded. Open apps are applications that can be downloaded and operated on any mobile operating system.

The new capital will fund larger sales, marketing and engineering projects, and enable the business to expand its offerings on Google’s Android platform, while continuing work on Blackberry and IOS operations.

Founded and led by chief executive Ilja Laurs, GetJar has created partnerships in the past year with Yahoo!, Sprint, AT&T, Openwave, Rovio, Zynga and Glu Mobile.

Todd Cardy

Todd was Editor of GrowthBusiness.co.uk between 2010 and 2011 as well as being responsible for publishing our digital and printed magazines focusing on private equity and venture capital. More by Todd Cardy