Mobile web apps are slow. Instart Logic now has $26M to try and change that

Content delivery networks are no longer cutting it when it comes to supporting mobile web apps, and Instart Logic is working to replace them.

Today, the company announced that it has raised $26 million as its third round of institutional funding. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led the round, with additional participation from existing investors Andreesen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Tenaya Capital.

Instart Logic’s solution helps mobile web apps run lightning fast. Generally, native apps — the kind you install through your smartphone’s app store — are faster than mobile web “apps” you access through your phone’s browser. However, native apps are also more costly to produce and difficult to update. So, if you could make mobile web apps faster, that would help encourage people to use them more, and companies could waste less time and effort making native apps.

Instart Logic’s contribution to this problem is by offering a more streamlined way of delivering mobile web apps to people’s phones.

There are two parts to the solution: One, a way of chopping up web apps into their component parts (images, HTML, snippets of JavaScript) and delivering them to client browsers in the optimal sequence. Two, a bit of JavaScript code that runs on the end-user’s browser, enabling the web application to run within the browser — a technique that Instart Logic calls “web application virtualization.”

“Application performance and user experience have never been a more strategic, competitive differentiator,” said Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers general partner Matt Murphy, in an official statement.

“Instart Logic’s application streaming approach is fundamentally different, delivering dramatic results for their customers and making existing content delivery networks obsolete,” Murphy added.

The company launched out of stealth mode a year ago after a beta testing phase with several participants, including a Fortune 500 company. It also announced its second round of funding at the same time.

“In less than 12 months, Instart Logic has introduced many of the world’s most performance-obsessed companies to a new way of accelerating their cloud applications,” said Instart Logic chief executive Manav Mital in an official statement. “We’ve only scratched the surface of our technology potential, and we are pleased that KPCB is joining us to take our business into the next phase of growth.”

The company says it will use the new funding to “expand sales and marketing and accelerate research and development.” It also said in an official statement that its customer base has grown by more than 500 percent over the past year.

Today, the company counts One Kings Lane, Volcom, Washington Post, Wine.com, and Omni Hotels among its customers.

Instart Logic is based in Mountain View, Calif., and was founded in 2010 by Raghu Venkat, Hariharan Kolam, and Manav Mital. The company has raised a total of $52 million to date.