Pixate Raises $3.8M From Accel Partners To Expand Its Dynamic UI Platform For Native Mobile Apps

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Pixate, Inc., a Y-Combinator backed company enabling dynamic user interfaces for native mobile applications, today announced a new $3.8 million Series A round of funding led by Accel Partners.

Pixate's flagship product, the Pixate Engine for iOS, is a free dynamic user interface (UI) platform for native mobile apps that dramatically reduces the amount of code required while building and experimenting with UI. With its native CSS and graphics engines, developers can stream front-end styling changes to an application without having to resubmit to an app store, empowering them to optimize an app's look and feel by dynamically altering design elements. Building on Pixate, developers can marry the crisp feel of native applications with the iterative, agile development behind today's web, enabling them to create more immersive and engaging app experiences.

"The best mobile companies will be native first. Rather than having an app be a 'black box', Pixate enables the decoupling of styling and design from the application's core logic; this is critical for those that want to iterate their way towards the optimal user experience, engagement -- and ultimately, conversion," said Paul Colton, CEO and Co-Founder of Pixate. "Testing between various looks and themes, or being able to dynamically change UI elements based on demographic or geographic rules is just the tip of the iceberg of what Pixate brings to native mobile apps."

Pixate launched January 2013 and has grown to hundreds of paying customers who have integrated the Pixate Engine to support iterative, native UI. With this new round of funding, the company plans to hire aggressively to expand platform support and develop for Android, creating a seamless UI framework for developers to push changes on both mobile operating systems.

"With design at an absolute premium given consumer expectations, mobile app differentiation continues to move to the UI layer. It's important for developers to be armed with tools to create powerful and engaging user experiences," says Andrew Braccia, partner at Accel Partners. "Today's native application development experience is far removed from the web world, but Pixate changes this with a platform that allows developers to build and iterate on UI faster and more efficiently than ever before."

The company is also announcing the launch of Pixate Labs, giving developers early access to forthcoming products. Pixate's core product, the Pixate Engine, is free for all developers. Premium Support options are also available. (For more information visit http://www.pixate.com/free).

About Pixate:
Paul Colton and Kevin Lindsey co-founded Pixate, Inc. as a Y-Combinator company in June of 2012. Pixate launched in January 2013 and has since amassed significant traction with mobile developers. Paul and Kevin have both had a long track record of creating and building successful startups that have focused on developer tools and app runtimes. Most recently Paul founded Aptana, Inc., and hired Kevin as the lead architect, to create a leading open-source Web application development IDE downloaded over 8 million times. Aptana was acquired by Appcelerator, Inc. Prior to that Paul founded Xamlon, Inc., and again hired Kevin as the first employee to build a company focusing on declarative markup for desktop and web applications. Paul started his entrepreneurial career creating JRun, the first Java App Server, later ending up at Adobe through acquisitions.  Kevin Lindsey is a computer graphics and language expert, is an active member in the SVG community and helped author "SVG Unleashed".

About Accel:
Founded in 1983, and managing over $9.6 billion in capital, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses.  Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London, and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel.

Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful technology companies, many of which have defined their categories, including 99designs, Actuate, AdMob, Agile Software, Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, BBN, Bonobos, Braintree, Brightcove, Cloudera, ComScore, Diapers.com (Quidsi), Dropbox, Etsy, Exclusively.in, Facebook, Flipkart, Fusion-IO, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak, Lookout, Macromedia, metroPCS, MoPub, Myntra, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Redback, Responsys, Riverbed, Spotify, Squarespace, SunRun, Trulia, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, Wonga, XenSource and Zimbra.

SOURCE Pixate, Inc.