Testbirds gets $2.9M as its Birdflight ‘crowdtesting’ product takes off

A new startup is harnessing the power of the crowd to help entrepreneurs and tech companies do their jobs better.

Testbirds, a German crowdtesting company, just raised €2.1 million ($2.9 million) as its first institutional funding, with French venture capital firm Senventure Partners leading this round. It’s also releasing a new product, BirdFlight, which enables customers to distribute and test their apps with their own testers.

Testbirds takes a customer’s mobile app or website and puts it in the hands of the customer’s target market, then collects and analyzes various criteria as predetermined by the customer. The company offers its services for testing on mobile (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry) and browser and desktop platforms such as Windows, Mac, Chrome, and Opera.

The new portfolio product, BirdFlight, will enable customers to upload and distribute iOS and Android apps still in beta to their own testers and do this free of charge.

“By adding a free, basic solution to our existing portfolio, we are now offering a third service level to app developers,” said cofounder Georg Hansbauer in a statement.

The company says it plans to use the new funding to expand its reach within Europe, expand on its current service offerings, and add more product levels to its portfolio. It previously received seed funding from Walter Beteilingungen und Immobilien AG in 2012.

Birdflight has offices in Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K., and Hungary, and was founded in 2011.