Irvine-based Toba Capital, headed by former Quest Software Inc. Chief Executive Vinny Smith, recently led a $15 million venture capital round for Sauce Labs Inc., a fast-growing provider of cloud-based Web and mobile application testing services.
It’s Toba’s second investment in the San Francisco software service provider, which has amassed an impressive customer base of about 3,500 companies, including HP and Microsoft.
“The fact that an inside investor made this investment is a good sign,” said Chief Executive Jim Cerna. “They’ve been helpful and bullish on the company.”
Toba partner Tyler Jewell sits on the Sauce board.
Newport Beach-based private equity firm The Contrarian Group, headed by Peter Ueberroth, was an early investor in Sauce.
Sauce has raised $36 million since its 2008 inception. It said it will use the latest proceeds for international expansion and branding.
“We’re growing fast and hiring like crazy,” Cerna said.
The subscription service ranges from $9 per month to seven figures annually for testing the interoperability and function of architectures, combinations of Web browsers, and computer and mobile operating systems.
