Instabug, an Egyptian bug reporting startup, has raised US$1.7 million from a venture capital firm and angel investors to out even more bug reporting tools and expand its reach.
The startup will use the funds to expand its suite of bug reporting tools to create a broader kit supporting mobile apps, and also grow its new San Francisco office.
“We’re excited to draw the attention of Silicon Valley investors to Egypt, and help support the growing startup scene there,” said Omar Gabr, CEO and co-founder of Instabug.
Accel Partners, a leading early and growth-stage venture capital firm, led the funding round. Participating in the round are Amr Awadallah, co-founder of Cloudera, and Jim Payne, founder and CEO of MoPub – both leading angel investors.
By joining Y Combinator’s (YC) Winter 2016 batch, which ran from January through March 2016 in Mountain View, California, Instabug had positioned itself to attract funding from investors. As such, this funding round, although a big deal for the startup and the Egyptian tech ecosystem, didn’t come as a surprise (at least to me).
It is also possible that the startup has received US$120,000 for 7% of its equity from YC. Yeah…that’s YC’s new deal.
Launched in 2013, Instabug helps app developers fix bugs before even submitting their apps to the store while still engaging their users after the app is launched.
By just shaking their phones, users can report bugs, send feedback and ask questions, without having to leave the app. They can also attach screenshots/images and voice notes.
Instabug then captures the steps to reproduce the problem and all other device details so that developers can fix the bug in a faster manner.
Top apps in the world, such as Yahoo, PayPal, Mashable, Buzzfeed and Asana, use Instabug for beta testing, user engagement and crash reporting. In fact, Instabug is now present in almost 300 million iOS and Android devices!
Instabug, which was originally part of the Egyptian accelerator Flat6Labs Cairo, raised US$300,000 from seven investors in 2013.