On The Heels Of Hiring Skype?s Former Strategy Boss, Urban Airship Hits 10 Billion Notifications Pushed

Urban Airship has been working pretty hard of late to plant itself firmly on the ?Startups to Watch? list. The Portland and San Francisco-based startup, a platform provider that gives developers a simple way to build in-app purchases and push notifications into their mobile apps, grabbed some media attention when it acquired SimpleGeo back in October for $3 million. As SimpleGeo provided location-based services and data to mobile developers, the acquisition made a lot of sense for Urban Airship, providing a complement to its push notifications focus; and given the early hype around SimpleGeo, it was a bargain. (Plus, there was the added benefit of getting the founders as advisors.)
Less than a month later, the startup followed that by announcing it had raised $15 million series C from Verizon, Salesforce.com, True Ventures, Foundry Group, and others.
At the same time, Intel announced its AppUp Fund ? a $100 million fund designed to invest in startups and enterprises developing apps and software tools for mobile devices and PCs ? and Urban Airship (along with 4tiitoo) was one of the first startups chosen to receive funding from Intel?s AppUp. Intel participated in Urban Airship?s series C round, whereupon it capped the deal off by signing a business collaboration agreement with Intel Software and Services Group on top of the investment.
Then Urban Airship discovered (by happy accident) that its push notifications worked on Amazon?s new Kindle Fire out of the box without having to further customize its code. I mean it almost starts to sound ridiculous, unless you want to say that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Furthermore, last week, Christopher Dean joined Urban Airship from Skype, where he was formerly Chief Strategy Officer, and held a number of other positions, including leading Skype?s global business development. Dean became Urban Airship?s Chief Revenue Officer, and followed the startup?s recent hiring of the Second Porch Founder as CMO. The former Skype CSO ha