Android OS customisation outfit CyanogenMod raises $23 million

If the level of official Android fragmentation wasn't enough, here comes the secondary market.

Rising out of the OS hacking community into a proper company, which offers highly optimised versions of Android, CyanogenMod has just closed a Series B funding round of $23 million.

New investors were Andreessen Horowitz and Chinese online giant Tencent.

Existing investors Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures, who funded the $7 million Series A round in April 2013, were also involved.

Co-founder Steve Kondik said the cash would be used to boost the 25-strong company's engineering resources.

"This new influx of capital will primarily be used to grow our engineering team as well as our UX, design, and product teams so that we can continue to build the next generation of mobile experience," he said in a blogpost.

He also pointed out that the company would remain firmly open source.

"Our goal for starting the company has always been to create the best possible mobile experience, and we believe that you should have the freedom to get that experience on any hardware you choose. Everyone contributing to the project is also an end user, and this is a really powerful idea."

CyanogenMod has signed deals with a number of OEM, including Chinese outfit Oppo and has over 11 million active installations.

It releases daily builds as well as stable and release builds of its version of Android, which doesn't include any of the official Google Experience features or any operator additions to improve performance.

It currently offers CyanogenMod 10 (Android 4.1), 10.1 (Android 4.2), 10.2 (Android 4.3) and 11 (Android 4.4).