Oakland-based firm Frontleaf has closed a $450,000 investment recently. Alchemist Accelerator and angel investors contributed to last month's round, according to VentureBeat.

Launched last spring, Frontleaf's web-based tool helps software sellers find out what makes their customers stick around. To do this, customers are given a little beacon to be plugged into their software, which allows Frontleaf to see what happens from the user's end. The company also interviews software executives to find out which metrics are considered important. The firm then integrates and interprets all the data collected, the report explained.

Out of the ten firms that participated in Frontleaf's beta testing phase last fall, half of them stayed as paying customers. Salsa Labs is one of those companies, said the report.

According to Frontlief chief executive and co-founder Tom Krackeler, the whole idea is to help software firms find out what are the most important factors in keeping end users happy with a product, the report stated.

For now, the Calfornia company works with software vendors on a yearly basis. Krackeler wants to add more to the startup's software. He said one potential addition is up-to-date information on what pushes a customer to abandon a product, VentureBeat reported.