Kahuna Launches with Customer Engagement Engine™ That Provides a Breakthrough for Mobile Marketers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Kahuna, a mobile marketing automation company, launched today and announced the public availability of its highly anticipated Customer Engagement Engine™, the first online platform for mobile marketers that automatically analyzes customer behavior in real time and delivers personalized messaging to boost usage of apps and increase revenue. The company also announced that it has secured more than $2 million of funding from institutional and leading angel investors.

Kahuna's solution is the first to combine powerful analytics with automated push/e-mail campaign capabilities into one easy-to-use "engine," and early results have been remarkable. A dozen beta customers, which have been using the service since early 2013, report that usage of their apps has tripled and that, as a result, revenue has risen more than 15%.

Vinny Lingham, CEO and cofounder of Gyft, a mobile gift-card service, said, "From the very first campaign, Kahuna made a significant impact to our business." Gyft saw a 240% increase in engaged users, a 17% boost in revenue (from cards purchased), a 12% rise in cards redeemed and a 7% boost in sharing on social media. Kahuna "has totally changed how we think about our users and customers," Lingham said.

Feng Chang, director of business strategy and analytics at Karmaloop.com, a clothing retailer, said, "We are talking millions of more app engagements because of Kahuna. It really is a powerful tool, and a must-have for mobile commerce companies."

Adam Marchick, CEO and cofounder of Kahuna and a former member of the Facebook growth team, said the Customer Engagement Engine springs from what is known as "growth hacking," the marketing method that high-growth companies like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Dropbox have used to great effect.

"All of these companies analyze customer usage in real time and deliver personalized messages across all channels to encourage the right behavior," Marchick said. "We founded Kahuna to put all these best practices in one engine, so any mobile marketer can just turn it on and watch usage and revenue grow."

Customer Engagement Marketing
Customer engagement marketing involves the real-time analysis of mobile and web behavior to identify patterns that lead to active usage, sharing, and purchasing. As customer behavior patterns are understood, the engine triggers real-time messages to maximize engagement and move customers through the value chain, toward purchase and hyper usage.

"Understanding mobile engagement patterns is critical for driving both online and in-store sales," explains Chris Mason, CEO and cofounder of Branding Brand, the #1 mobile commerce provider in the US with over 200 top retail and brand clients. "And this will become even more important as mobile and tablets become the dominant platform choice for customers around the world over the next year."

"Customer engagement engines are very powerful but challenging to build," said Jacob Taylor, CTO and cofounder of Kahuna. "Every customer we talked to was forced to build their own solution from scratch, or try to marry analytics and messaging systems that weren't designed to work together, either of which created lots of manual steps. We built an engine from the ground up that runs automatically and saves precious time for mobile marketers. Their engineering teams can now get back to building product, instead of wasting time with custom data requests. Our customers have been very pleased with the ease of use."

Jen Rhee, marketing manager at Gyft, said, "Kahuna was incredibly easy to set up, and now we have a real-time view into our customer engagement. If we see a new pattern that needs a new campaign, we can set it up in a matter of minutes."

Leading Growth Marketers Invest in Kahuna Seed Round
Kahuna also today announced that it has secured a $2M+ seed round from SoftTech VC, Costanoa Venture Capital and angel investors, including, Tim Kendall, of Pinterest; Raj De Datta, of Bloomreach; Lee Linden, of Facebook; Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of Facebook's growth team; Omar Siddiqui, of Kiwi; David Vivero, of RentJuice and Zillow; Matt Wyndowe, of Facebook; and others -- all of whom are very knowledgeable in engagement marketing and have built businesses that grew more than 300% annually.

Lee Linden, an investor, mobile pioneer and head of commerce at Facebook, said, "Mobile app downloads alone won't create value without converting them into engaged users. This is why customer engagement analysis and engagement marketing is critical and why Kahuna is so valuable."

"We are already delivering millions of newly engaged users to our customers every month," Marchick said. "We're very excited to see our clients be so successful."

About Kahuna, Inc.
Kahuna, Inc. is the mobile marketing company behind the Customer Engagement Engine™, an online platform that automatically identifies mobile usage behavior and delivers personalized campaigns to maximize usage and revenue. The Kahuna Customer Engagement Engine is available for iOS, Android and mobile web, and can be installed in about 30 minutes. Kahuna was founded in 2012 by Adam Marchick and Jacob Taylor. The company is located in Mountain View, CA.

Editorial Contact:
Kim Carroll
GMK Communications for Kahuna
[email protected]
(916) 960-9202

SOURCE Kahuna, Inc.