Airship (formerly Urban Airship) is a
Portland, Oregon
Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...
-based company that offers marketing and branding services to its clients. Its services enable businesses to create personalized messages that can be delivered to customers through various channels, such as
push notifications
Push technology, also known as server Push, refers to a communication method, where the communication is initiated by a server rather than a client. This approach is different from the "pull" method where the communication is initiated by a client ...
and
SMS
Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...
messaging. In addition to messaging services, Airship provides its clients with
customer analytics Customer analytics is a process by which data from customer behavior is used to help make key business decisions via market segmentation and predictive analytics. This information is used by businesses for direct marketing, site selection, and ...
services to help them better understand their customers' behavior and preferences.
, Airship has offices in Portland,
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
,
Santa Barbara,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
,
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, New Delhi, Munich, and Singapore.
History
In 2009, Urban Airship was founded by Steven Osborn, Scott Kveton, Adam Lowry, and Michael Richardson. The company received $1.1 million in Series A funding in February 2010, and then received $5.4 million in Series B funding in November of the same year. On November 5, 2011 Airship received $15.1 million in
Series C funding
A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the p ...
from
Salesforce.com
Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and appl ...
,
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
, and
Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...
, among others.
On February 6, 2013 the company announced additional funding of $25 million from Foundry Group,
Intel Capital
Intel Capital Corporation started off as the investment arm of Intel Corporation in 1991 and in January 2025, it spun off as a standalone investment fund. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies off ...
, True Ventures and
Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...
. In October 2014 the company announced another $12.1 million in Series D funding from existing investors. In February 2015 the company picked up an additional $9 million in venture funding, bringing total funding to $67.6 million. In June 2018 the company completed an F round of funding at $25 million led by Foundry Group.
In July 2014, Scott Kveton stepped down as CEO. In October of that same year Brett Caine was hired as CEO. Caine was previously the president of Citrix Online. In November 2016, Airship launched two messaging APIs Open Channels and Open Profiles. In September 2018, Airship released beta SDK for iOS.
In June 2019, the company rebranded as Airship (formally being Urban Airship)
Acquisitions
Airship acquired SimpleGeo on October 31, 2011 for a reported $3.5 million. SimpleGeo developed toolsets allowing developers to more easily create location aware mobile applications and had partnered with Airship to combine software and services shortly before their acquisition. Airship discontinued SimpleGeo services on March 31, 2012.
In December 2012, Airship acquired Tello, another True Ventures-backed startup. Airship acquired Tello in an all-stock deal in order to integrate PassTools, Tello's
Apple Passbook management product, into its current offering.
The company purchased SMS commerce company, ReplyBuy in September 2020 for an undisclosed amount.
In August 2019, Airship acquired Apptimize, a user experience testing company based in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
.
References
External links
* {{official website
2009 establishments in Oregon
Companies based in Portland, Oregon
American companies established in 2009
Mobile technology companies
Privately held companies based in Oregon
Software companies based in Oregon
Software companies of the United States
Software companies established in 2009