CyanogenMod Just Raised $22 Million

Good news for CyanogenMod fans today: the company has announced its Series B funding round closed out with $22 million after previously raising more than $7 million in Series A funding. New investors in the latest round include Andreessen Horowitz and Tencent, with Benchmark and Redpoint continuing their involvement.

For those of you not in the know, CyanogenMod is an open source mobile OS based on official Android builds released by Google. It features additions created both by the company, as well as third-party developers.

“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,” the company wrote in a press release. “There is no way for an isolated product planning team to come up with every off-the-wall idea unless they have unearthed it via extensive market research. The CM community is global and diverse. We can build the things we need, when we need them. Starting the company has allowed us to accelerate that process and bring more of our vision to reality.”

While CyanogenMod is pretty ubiquitous to many Android tinkerers and even casual users, the organization is small, with only 25 full time staffers. Earlier this year through a partnership with Oppo, the company released the first ever Android smartphone to run CyanogenMod out of the box.

CyanogenMod users shouldn’t expect to see any drastic differences in the immediate future – the company says the funds will be divided between its various divisions, including product development, with an eye toward long-term growth.

“We will continue to invest in the community by way of increased resources, sponsoring more events, and of course staying open. You’ll see new apps and features from us, new services, and also more devices which run CM out of the box.”