STARTUP WATCH- Instabug raises USD 5 mn in Series “A”: Cairo-based startup Instabug has raised USD 5 mn in series A funding, Menabytes reports. The round was led by Accel — which also led the company’s USD 1.7 mn seed round in 2016 — with the participation of Cloudera co-founder Amr Awadallah and MoPub founder and CEO Jim Payne. Instabug has now raised over USD 7 mn in funding to date. It has seen 120% revenue growth y-o-y, and is nearly profitable, according to co-founder and CEO Omar Gabr. Fundraising conversations with Accel reportedly started after the covid-19 outbreak, and Instabug intends to use the funding to accelerate its growth plans and launch new products in the coming months.

Instabug’s rapid growth has been given a boost by covid-19: Instabug began as a background tool for mobile app users to send feedback or report errors by shaking their phones and is evolving into a performance tracker for mobile app teams. It has seen usage grow by 45% since January this year, the company told Menabytes. “With more people spending their time at home, there’s more app downloads and more app usage. Also, Instabug is designed to streamline the communication between QA and developers which is very relevant now since all is working remotely,” representatives said in a statement.