Branch, a Silicon Valley deep-linking startup, has raised $60 million in Series C funding led by Andy Rubin's Playground Ventures. TechCrunch broke the news, and CEO Alex Austin confirmed it to Axios ― adding that all existing investors "bought back in and then some."
The last time we discussed deep-linking, it was in the context of Quixey, which shut down after burning through $130 million in venture capital. It's an important tech space, given that it's the mobile app equivalent of hyperlinks for web pages. But it's also a very tough business to make a go of, as we saw with both Quixey and URX (acqui-hired by Pinterest). Branch hopes to buck those odds by focusing on growth tools (e.g., downloads, referrals, better attribution), as are rivals like Yozio. Others, like Button, are aiming at commerce.