The Paris-based app discovery tool AppGratis just raised $13.5 million in a Series A round with Iris Capital and the Orange Publicis fund (Update – March 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link).
The fresh capital will be used for the international expansion of AppGratis and for hiring new talent. The premium app discovery network AppGratis, which was founded in 2010, delivers about 100 million app installs yearly and offers a great way to get your app downloaded by millions of people, no incentives attached.
Simon Dawlat, founder and CEO of AppGratis, stated within the company’s blog: “We’ve always taken great pride in building a company that was profitable from Day-One. A company that needed no external funding to grow to 7 million users, a rock star staff of 40 mobile experts and availability for our little app, AppGratis in over 30 countries. We did not want the spotlight, we didn’t care much about shiny press releases and fancy investors, we were under the radar and happy to be flying there because we knew we were building something so big that in the early days, the less exposure, the better. But now that the news is out, I understand that it may come as a surprise to some.”
He continued with an explanation: “What has changed, you ask? Well simply, it’s about the whole goddamn world transitioning from desktop to mobile at breakneck speed. Of course, there’s growth in the West. But Brazil, which we entered 18 month ago is on FIRE. India is on FIRE. Japan is on FIRE. It’s not only the US or Europe or some specific place. It’s truly global. Clearly, market growth is outpacing everyone — and because we still want to be leading this race in the years to come, we felt now was the perfect moment to push the hyperspace button. That’s how, early last year, talking with my partners Franck and Sylvain, we came to the conclusion that we needed an extra boost to tackle global growth.
In relation to the investors, Simon Dawlat stated: In the end, we picked Iris Capital and the Orange Publicis Fund which now provide us with a healthy combination of VC money, mobile DNA, advertising excellence DNA and global reach. And because the company was already very profitable when we sat at the negotiation table, we took the time we needed, and inked a perfect deal.”
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[…] just killed?! Posted on April 8, 2013 by Thomas Ohr The French startup AppGratis, which raised $ 13,5 million in a Series A round in January, has a big problem: Its AppGratis app (which is basically an app discovery tool) has […]