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Jon Russell
Jon Russell was Asia Editor for The Next Web from 2011 to 2014. Originally from the UK, he lives in Bangkok, Thailand. You can find him on T Jon Russell was Asia Editor for The Next Web from 2011 to 2014. Originally from the UK, he lives in Bangkok, Thailand. You can find him on Twitter, Angel List, LinkedIn.
Application Craft, a British startup that professes to “kill the complexity” of app development, has come out of a 15-month beta and revealed that it has landed $1 million in funding.
The Stratford-upon-Avon-based company aims to build a bridge between the complexities of developing high quality apps and the existing self creation tools that allow companies and single users to build what are, essentially, very basic apps.
The Application Craft product enables the creation of a wide-range of apps, and it goes beyond mobile to offer Web, native and hybrid apps for desktops and tablets, as well as the staple smartphone space.
Application Craft hasn’t revealed exact figures, but it says it is launching out of beta with “thousands of users”, although one name stands out: Coca Cola. Though most of us knew that the Olympics was coming to London since it was officially announced in 2005, the global beverage giant found itself up against it, time-wise, and turned to Application Craft to get one of its apps in place for The Games.
“Using Application Craft, we were able to turn our project around in a way that was not possible using any other approach we could find that did not require deep technical and mobile expertise,” said Janice Cole, senior manager of field sales.
Like a number of other app creation services, Application Craft is available in its most basic form for free. More experienced developers are urged to look to the ‘Pro Platform’, which includes an expanded range of features, notably: enterprise data integration, advanced widgets, support for Google Analytics and more.
As for the funding, the company has disclosed the round was led by Danny Aegerter, founder of Zurich-based Armada Investment Group, with participation from Urs Wietlisbach, co-founder and vice chairman of asset management firm Partners Group.
The company says that the investment has helped it tighten its offering, and it is already “close to breaking even” – those are words that early-stage investors like to hear.
The app creation space is fast becoming a crowded one and other firm jostling for attention include Infinite Monkey, Appguppy and Korea-based AppCraft, to name just a few.
Image via Shutterstock
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