Battery leads funding charge of mobile analytics startup Amplitude

Despite a slowdown in the startup funding environment in the past six months, Amplitude is scheduled to announce today it has raised a $15 million Series B round led by Battery Ventures.

Existing investors Benchmark CapitalData Collective, Merus Capital and Quest Venture Partners also participated, Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates said. He added that some of the company’s early angel investors also took part in the latest round.

Skates said the funding will be used for hiring in the customer services and sales departments. Amplitude aims to have 70 employees by the end of the year, up from 40 today, he said.

The San Francisco-based company provides a mobile and Web-based analytics platform that tracks user behavior. Enterprise customers include Instacart, LogMeIn, Square and Thumbtack, among others.

The funding brings the total amount raised by Amplitude to $26 million since it went through Y Combinator and was founded in 2012. The total includes a $9 million Series A round in August 2015.

As part of the latest round, Neeraj Agrawal, general partner at Battery Ventures, has joined the board, which also includes Eric Vishria, a general partner at Benchmark.

Skates said that he’s heard from other entrepreneurs about the tough fundraising environment for startups. It helped that Agrawal was following the company and had experience with SaaS and analytics, he said.

Agrawal — who was an early investor in online marketing and Web analytics provider Omniture, which eventually went public — had “been talking to us for a while,” Skates said. “We see eye-to-eye on how analytics is changing and shifting to mobile.”

Photo of Battery Ventures General Partner Neeraj Agrawal courtesy of Battery Ventures