News

Iris Mobile Adds $2.5 Million to Double Staff

February 17, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

Featured on Crain’s Chicago Business

Iris Mobile just raised $2.5 million from Chicago venture funds Origin Ventures, OCA Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels and Illinois Ventures and Champaign-based Serra Ventures.

The Chicago-based software company plans to double its staff to 60 this year, said new CEO Marc Grabowski. Iris Mobile, founded by former Motorola technologists, got its start with software that helps marketers automatically tailor their mobile-messaging ads to display properly on different types of phones connected to different carriers.

Now it has added the capability to allow advertisers to gather data from users’ mobile activity, such as browsing a site or shopping inside an app, and combine it with information about shoppers’ in-store activity.

Grabowski is a Yahoo veteran who was hired last year. Co-founder Cezar Kolodziej is president.

The new money will help Iris Mobile add sales staff, data scientists and engineers. The company grew nearly sixfold last year, Grabowski said, though he declined to disclose revenue. It counts as customers H&M, Express, Ashley Stewart and Academy Sports.

Altogether, the firm has raised $5.5 million from investors since it was launched in 2008 by Kolodziej and two former Motorola colleagues, Deep Malik and Nick Doulas.