Pendo acquires Insert to add mobile apps to its user analytics and engagement platform

Pendo helps businesses understand and assist their customers with tools like analytics, polls and walkthroughs. Until now, however, CEO Todd Olson said the company has been focused on the web (both desktop and mobile), with just a single mobile developer on the team.

“We as a team constantly had a lot of internal debates about how much to invest in [mobile],” he said. “If you want to do it, you have to really invest in it.”

That’s why the company has made its first acquisition — it’s buying Insert, a mobile marketing startup based in Israel. Olson told me that he connected with Insert through Battery Ventures, which backed both companies, and he saw their product as doing “essentially what we do, but for mobile devices.”

There are some differences, he acknowledged, since Insert is more focused on mobile messaging and less on analytics. But in Olson’s view, the Insert team has already done “all the hard work” of creating a platform that marketers and product designers can use, and integrating that product with native mobile apps.

“The key is doing it without developers,” he said. So with Insert, Pendo can build a platform that allows teams to engage with customers and improve their product across devices, and to do so without developer assistance: “The vision is to combine the products into one simple platform.”

Pendo recently raised a $25 million Series C, partly to fund acquisitions and international expansion — it looks like the Insert deal covers both. (Insert’s Tel Aviv office will also become Pendo’s first international location.) Insert, meanwhile, raised a $10 million round from Battery last year.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Olson said the combined companies have a headcount of 145 employees.

“With Insert, Pendo acquires a team that shares its passion for great product experiences,” said Insert founder and CEO Shahar Kaminitz in the acquisition announcement. “This combined platform allows product teams to better understand mobile users and deliver personalized experiences on the right mobile moments, when users are likely to get the best value.”