Customer engagement platform OneSignal Inc. said today it has closed on a new strategic investment from ServiceNow Ventures.

The funding, whose amount was not revealed, extends its recently announced $50 million Series C round of funding.

OneSignal is the creator of a customer engagement platform that enables mobile, web, email, SMS and in-app message push notifications for developers and marketers. Its software is designed to empower communications, with tools for mapping customer journeys, A/B testing, analytics, personalization and segmentation.

The platform is especially popular in the mobile industry. The company says it powers about 500,000 apps, or about 15% of the apps listed on the App Store and the Google Play Store.

Mobile developers can use OneSignal to send push notifications to their users. An online retailer, for example, might wish to notify users of its shopping app when a popular item is back in stock. It also provides the ability to deliver in-app notifications directly within a mobile service’s interface.

The platform offers plugins for various popular publishing platforms such as WordPress and Shopify, as well as software development kit wrappers for common iOS and Android programming languages. The platform also has REST API endpoints to support any technical stack integration, making it easier for marketers and developers to streamline workflows. The segmentation tools enable users to reach their audiences in a more targeted fashion, sending only the most relevant and personalized messages based on user behavior, demographics and other signals, according to the company.

In its 2022 State of Customer Messaging report, OneSignal said almost two-thirds of organizations it surveyed believe that mobile push notifications are the most important customer engagement channel for their business. The same report found that the ability to personalize notifications results in 259% higher engagement than notifications that don’t use personalized content. It’s for these reasons that OneSignal believes its platform can give marketers a substantial competitive advantage.

OneSignal co-founder and Chief Executive George Deglin said that a strong multichannel presence is the most effective strategy for businesses to engage with buyers, users and employees, or anyone else that is a critical part of the company’s value chain. “The investment from ServiceNow Ventures allows us to continue scaling our automated omnichannel messaging platform even further so we can integrate more use cases and expand our global footprint to help organizations engage better,” he said.

The funds from today’s round will be used to accelerate OneSignal’s go-to-market initiatives with a focus on enhancing its omnichannel messaging and orchestration capabilities, the company said.

The investment from ServiceNow comes after the workflow automation software provider chose OneSignal as its main SMS and push notification provider for its Knowledge 2023 event. OneSignal said ServiceNow joins a list of more than 6,000 companies on its client list.

Terence Cheshire, ServiceNow’s vice president of customer and industry workflows, said enterprises in all industries are finding it harder and more expensive to acquire new customers and retain talent.

“OneSignal addresses both challenges with use cases that help organizations engage more effectively with internal and external stakeholders, such as employees and customers,” he said “We look forward to supporting their growth as they continue to develop innovative solutions that unlock business potential and help deliver seamless customer and employee experiences.”

Following its initial Series C round last September, OneSignal wasted little time in putting that money to use, investing in its platform to add more multichannel customer engagement capabilities. New innovations include the launch of Journeys, which is a visual workflow builder that companies can use to create customized user experiences.

In addition, OneSignal announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud in September. It allows developers and marketing teams to easily create a customer engagement experience native to Google Cloud’s environment and purchase OneSignal services through the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Image: OneSignal