Push notifications can be a powerful tool for engaging users when applied correctly. Lilomi Inc., a Y Combinator-backed startup that does business as OneSignal, has raised $7 million in funding from investors to ease the implementation process.

The newly closed round, announced today, was led by early-stage fund SignalFire with participation from Rakuten Ventures and several angel backers. Their cash infusion is intended to help OneSignal widen the adoption of its notification delivery platform, which is already among the most popular on the market.

The service’s strong adoption can be attributed to two main factors. The first is OneSignal’s focus on ease-of-use. Developers can integrate the service into their applications in as little as 15 minutes, according to the startup. From there, a set of straightforward controls provide the ability to fine-tune how push notifications are delivered.

OneSignal makes it possible to tailor messages for the preferences of different audiences within an application’s installed base. A retailer that uses push notifications to advertise new deals through its mobile app, say, might customize the contents of each alert based on user location. OneSignal packs an A/B feature that lets developers experiment with different messages to identify the format that works best.

The other major factor behind OneSignal’s success is its business model. Developers can use the service for free if they share audience data with the startup, which it monetizes through partnerships with advertisers.

OneSignal’s value proposition has struck a chord in the market. The startup claims that service is used by more than 220,000 developers worldwide at companies such as Adobe Systems Inc., Zillow Group Inc. and Zynga Inc. The startup offers paid options for corporate clients that aren’t keen on sharing their user data with third parties.

Services that can ease development projects are drawing interest from enterprises and venture capitalists alike. Previously, Auth0 Inc. raised $30 million for its cloud-based authentication platform, which promises to reduce the amount of work involved in adding user management features to a service. Not long before that, Skuid Inc. secured $25 million in funding to let business users build mobile apps without having to ask their company’s software team for help.

Image: Unsplash