PacketZoom, a company that helps developers improve app user experience, raised $4.3 million in a funding round and appointed a new CEO.

The firm wants to use its new funds to help drive the company’s momentum in optimising the app user experience across several vertical markets including gaming, media, retail, and travel.

The company also named Shlomi Gian, former head of market development of Akamai Technologies, as its new CEO.

He said: “If an app performs poorly users don’t blame the mobile network where 70 per cent of latency resides, they just abandon the app. With PacketZoom technology mobile apps enjoy unprecedented speed and reliability and that translates into improved user retention and engagement for our customers.”

Packetzoom has engineered a way to accelerate content delivery that it claims is two to three times faster than conventional methods. It does this by addressing roadblocks in how mobile data is transmitted through carrier and Wi-Fi networks, commonly referred to as the “mobile last mile”.

It customises how apps perform over the mobile last mile based on factors such as the user’s geographic location and type of mobile network.

Through software-defined acceleration, app publishers and developers can deliver a “radically more responsive experience” for their app users, which the firm described as “a critical need across the mobile industry”.

The company claims that millions of devices run its SDK and that “large apps from respected companies depending on our infrastructure for their success”. Its clients include game maker Glu Mobile.

The funding was led by First Round Capital and Baseline Ventures.