Urban Airship has raised $21.6M in less than 2 years, and I can't help but wonder when (and if) they're actually going to start making money.<p>Providing a RESTful front-end on Apple's push notification API is a pretty small thing. Apple solved the subscription problem, which was supposed to be one of UA's legs to stand on.<p>This statement makes me think they're grasping at straws as the platform vendors iterate them into obsolescence:<p><i>As we look to 2012 and beyond we’ll be looking at new ways to bake our platform into connected devices. Mobile phones are our bread and butter but we see opportunities with tablets, ultra-notebooks, desktops, TVs, set-top boxes and more.</i><p>I've always thought UA's business model could only ever support a "lifestyle" company (not intended the derogatory sense, by any means). They're not really proving me wrong here, and it seems like they're inflating themselves with VC, burning cash at a phenomenal rate, and grasping at straws to try and find something they can do to make money other than wrap Apple and Android push notifications in a REST API.
So Salesforce (CRM) made a "strategic investment" in this round. My bet is that this is just the first part of an acquisition which was unable to be completed at this time.<p>If I were a betting man, I'd say CRM will acquire UA (read: finish their acquisition) in the next 12 months. Think of this investment as a discount on the final sale price that gives the founders the visible exit they seek (which probably couldn't happen today) and puts SimpleGeo into the acquisition bag all at once.
Maybe I'm just old and remember the humanity of it, but isn't having your logo be reminiscent of a major human tragedy not the best move in the world? Or don't logos matter that much? Or maybe the target market doesn't even remember it? Might we see twin towers logos in 50 years, trying to evoke a 90s NY nostalgia feel in the youngsters?
There is so much potential for geo-fencing. I'm currently trying to figure out how to use it for a one-time scavenger hunt, with no luck in figuring out the tech. A service for this would be worth money, certainly.