Experiment Engine Archives

Claire Vo, co-founder and CEO of Experiment Engine, photo by Laura Lorek

Austin-based Experiment Engine announced Tuesday that is has closed on a $1 million seed funding round.

The company received funding from Founder Collective, based in New York and Boston, Mercury Fund in Houston and Austin Angel Investors Dan Graham, CEO of BuildASign and Rony Kahan, Co-founder of Indeed.com.

Experiment Engine, which recently graduated from the Austin Techstars program, offers a software as a service web and mobile platform that allows companies to test different versions of their products. The testing is known as A/B test as it compares two different versions of a website, mobile application or other product to Experiment Engines marketplace of conversion experts. Those experts provide “ready-to-test page versions that are shown to live traffic for Experiment Engine’s customers.” The customers determine which is the best version.

“By providing on-demand access to skilled conversion rate optimizers, Experiment Engine has helped early customers triple tests run per month and drive conversion gains averaging 20 percent,” according to a news release.

The company plans to use the funds to expand its platform and on sales and marketing.

“Having run hundreds of A/B tests over our careers, my co-founder and I have a first-hand appreciation of the true impact continuous optimization delivers,” Claire Vo, Experiment Engine’s CEO and co-founder, said in a news release. “By closing this seed round, we have the resources to accelerate our business and deliver our optimization solution to marketers who want to truly ‘Always Be Testing.’”

A Longhorn Startup company, Burpy, is among the latest crop of Techstars Austin companies selected to participate in its three month long accelerator.

Burpy, founded by a group of UT undergraduates and led by Aseem Ali, is an online grocery delivery business available in Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas.

The other team from Austin is Experiment Engine, which runs split tests for companies by a panel of experts. The rest of the teams come from New York City, Brooklyn, Birmingham, Blacksburg, Phoenix, Marina del Rey, San Diego, Belfast and London. The 11 Techstars Austin teams are an electric group ranging from Brewbot, a beer brewing robot to Pivot Freight, a rate comparison engine for freight shipping. Techstars selected them from more than 1,500 applicants.

Smart Host, the team from New York, won the 2014 Startup Bus competition at Rackspace just before SXSW. The company created an app that aggregates and analyzes the short-term rental market from sites like HomeAway and AirBnB so a person renting out their place can price it correctly.

The program kicked off Monday and will run through Sept. 3rd when it will host its demo day, according to Jason Seats, the program’s managing director.

“Heading into the second program in Austin, we’re fortunate to have many of our 2013 Austin alumni on the ground as well as almost 100 incredible mentors,” Seats wrote in a blog post announcing the latest class on the Techstars website.

Each of the companies selected gets $18,000 in seed funding and are offered a $100,000 convertible note. They also get perks such as free website hosting and office space. When the program ends, many of the companies go on to raise money from angel investors and venture capitalists.

The Techstars Summer 2014 Austin class:

Brewbot – A beer brewing robot controlled and monitored by your smartphone.

Burpy – Delivering same-day groceries and home essentials from a variety of local stores.

Cloud66 – Deploy and manage Ruby apps on any cloud.

Common Form – Do your taxes in 5 minutes from your pc or mobile device.

Experiment Engine – A/B testing with a marketplace of conversion experts.

Fashion Metric – Using big data to enhance fit and sizing for apparel retailers and brands.

Free Textbooks – Equips student influencers with software to replace their bookstore.

LawnStarter – The easiest way to order and manage lawn care.

NMRKT – Powering eCommerce for blogs, online magazines, and content creators.

Pivot Freight – Rate comparison engine and discount broker for freight shipping.

Smart Host – Intelligently price your short-term and vacation rental.

Tag: Experiment Engine

Experiment Engine Gets $1 Million in Seed Funding

Techstars Austin Unveils its Second Class