"Crowdtesting" firm Applause closed a $35 million funding round led by Credit Suisse and Accenture (NYSE: ACN), bringing total funding to date for Applause to $115 million. Accenture also announced an alliance with Applause.

“Crowdsourcing will supplement, not replace, traditional staffing capabilities and provide flexible access to in-demand talent that can help clients improve the end-to-end performance of their websites, mobile applications and Internet of Things devices,” said Bhaskar Ghosh, group chief executive, Accenture Technology Services. “By working with a crowdtesting leader like Applause, we will be better positioned to help our clients build a more liquid workforce that addresses the constant need for new skills, accelerates speed to market and enhances the customer experience.”

The Applause crowd community counts more than 250,000 assurance testers around the world, while Accenture has 35,000 testing professionals. Accenture is already working with Applause to test, secure and monitor digital applications across mobile devices, desktops and more.

“As organizations are moving toward the As-a-Service economy with the goal to achieve higher agility and to accelerate time to value, testing services have to be able to support those strategies,” said Tom Reuner, research VP at HfS Research. “By blending crowdsourcing of testing talent with other innovations such as automation and artificial intelligence, organizations are able to respond to the ever increasing complexity of technology while still speeding up deployments.”

Applause is based in Boston and launched in August 2008. It reports a global community of more than 250,000 testers. It's testing projects for companies that include Google, Microsoft, Rolex and Shutterfly.