Mobile marketer Leanplum fattens up with $11.6 million, unveils a new planning tool for app campaigns

Leanplum is a little heavier today, with its announcement of a new $11.6 million in investment funding.

The San Francisco-based mobile marketing company is also now more automated, with its simultaneous announcement of a campaign planning tool called the User Lifecycle Engine.

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The Engine allows marketers to orchestrate multiple campaigns around an app and multiple messaging within a campaign, oriented around specific user actions or a timeline.

A typical app campaign will have dozens of components, CEO and cofounder Momchil Kyurkchiev pointed out, including emails and push notifications of various kinds. Previously, a Leanplum user managed these components through onscreen lists that were not interdependent, but the new tool could change that.

For users who book a flight through a travel app, he said, by way of example, marketers might use the Engine to send a travel guide the week before the flight. An hour before departure, travelers might get a push notification about special deals in the destination locale. The entire campaign would be oriented around the departure date and time.

Kyurkchiev acknowledged that the new campaign automation view is inspired by the actionable timeline found on many marketing automation platforms for websites and apps, such as Marketo‘s. But Leanplum’s, he explained, has a mobile-first orientation.

“Push notifications are first-class citizens here,” he said.

The company says the Lifecycle Engine represents another stage in its evolution from mobile A/B testing and user interface optimization — since its founding in 2012 by former Google engineer — to its current incarnation as a mobile marketing platform that includes automated campaigns (similar to competitors like Urban Airship).

A recent VB Insight report on Mobile Marketing Automation described Leanplum as one of the “most innovative” in this space.

The Series B funding brings the total raised to $17.2 million. Kyurkchiev said the new investment will be used for “expanding the team and ramping up sales and marketing.”

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This round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Buyers, with participation from Shasta Ventures.