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Sensor Tower
Sensor Tower was founded in San Francisco in 2013 by Alexey Sidorov, emerging when the mobile app market lacked independent analytics. The company operates a...
Sensor Tower
Sensor Tower was founded in San Francisco in 2013 by Alexey Sidorov, emerging when the mobile app market lacked independent analytics. The company operates a proprietary data pipeline that aggregates app rankings, download estimates, and revenue intelligence across the Apple App Store and Google Play. It monetizes through subscription-based SaaS products, serving enterprise clients who need to benchmark performance, track competitors, and identify acquisition targets in the mobile economy. The firm's core product suite covers Store Intelligence, Usage Intelligence, and Ad Intelligence — spanning downloads, active users, and advertising spend for millions of apps globally. Confirmed clients include Google, Microsoft, Tencent, and Zynga (per Bloomberg, 2018). Its data underpins public reports on app market trends and has been cited by financial analysts covering companies like Snap and Twitter. Sensor Tower covers more than 60 countries and compiles its estimates from a combination of first-party analytics integrations and machine learning models. Sensor Tower has raised venture capital from investors including Riverwood Capital and Mosaic Ventures. In October 2023, the firm acquired rival data platform data.ai's (formerly App Annie) mobile analytics assets in a consolidation that reshaped the mobile intelligence landscape (per the firm, October 2023). The company maintains dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, with additional offices in Asia to support its global client base. Its data is widely used in SEC filings and IPO roadshow materials by mobile-first companies. Unlike venture-backed peers that pivoted toward marketing execution tools, Sensor Tower remains a pure information business — a proprietary dataset that functions as infrastructure for the mobile economy. Its competitive moat sits in the scale and longevity of its historical data series, which now spans a decade of app store activity, making it exceptionally difficult for clients to replace with internal tools or smaller competitors.
General information
Firm type
Market Research / Digital Intelligence Platform
Year founded
2013
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
San Francisco
Corporate office
San Francisco, CA, United States
Principals
Alexey (Oleg) Sidorov
Co-founder
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What is Sensor Tower's core business model?
Sensor Tower operates as a subscription-based data platform, selling access to mobile app market intelligence. Its products track estimated app downloads, revenue, usage, and advertising spend across the Apple App Store and Google Play. The primary customer segments are enterprise brands, game publishers, investors, and financial analysts who use the data for competitive benchmarking and market sizing (per the firm's official communications).
How does Sensor Tower collect its data?
Sensor Tower combines first-party data from software development kits integrated into thousands of apps with machine learning models that derive estimates from publicly available rankings and signals. The company describes its methodology as a blend of deterministic data from partners and probabilistic modeling that fills gaps for apps where direct analytics are unavailable. Its accuracy is periodically validated against publicly reported figures from publicly traded gaming and social media companies.
Who are Sensor Tower's main competitors?
Before acquiring data.ai's mobile analytics assets in October 2023, Sensor Tower competed directly with data.ai (formerly App Annie) as the two dominant independent mobile intelligence providers. Other competitors in parts of the market include Apptopia and Similarweb. The October 2023 acquisition effectively consolidated the two largest independent data providers, leaving Sensor Tower as the primary specialized mobile intelligence vendor.
How is Sensor Tower funded and who are its major investors?
Sensor Tower is a venture capital-backed private company. Publicly known investors include Riverwood Capital, a technology-focused growth equity firm, and Mosaic Ventures, an early-stage venture firm based in London (per TechCrunch, 2018). The company has also raised debt financing, including a facility to fund its acquisition strategy.
Does Sensor Tower provide sentiment analysis or qualitative app reviews?
Sensor Tower's products focus on quantitative metrics — downloads, revenue, usage, and advertising spend estimates. While it offers curated intelligence reports and market landscape analyses, the firm does not specialize in natural language processing for app review sentiment. Clients seeking qualitative user feedback typically pair its data with dedicated sentiment or app review aggregation tools.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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