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Appia Secures $10 Million Investment from Venrock

Funding to Accelerate App Marketplace Launches Worldwide with Mobile Operators, Device OEMs and Mobile Software Companies

03/30/2011

Durham, NC -- Appia, the world’s largest open app marketplace, today announces that it has secured a $10 million investment from Venrock. Appia will use the new capital to accelerate product development of its open app marketplace and launch app stores for partners around the world. Dev Khare, Vice President at Venrock, has joined the company’s board of directors.

Appia’s strategy of powering white-label open app marketplaces recently earned Appia a ranking of #15 on the Wall Street Journal’s list of the top 50 venture-backed companies out of a field of over 5,700 companies. Appia also recently announced partnerships with Opera Software, the #1 Web browser for smartphones, to power the Opera Mobile Store for more than 100 million users, as well as with Telcel, Mexico’s largest operator, to power the Ideas Appstore for Telcel’s 64 million subscribers.

“We are extremely impressed with this team’s vision and experience within the Web and mobile ecosystems, as well as Appia’s success powering app stores for mobile operators, device OEMs and mobile software partners around the world,” said Dev Khare at Venrock. “For established Web and mobile publishers as well as emerging application developers, Appia is fast becoming a key distribution channel to consumers globally.”

“Venrock’s expertise working with entrepreneurs in the mobile and Internet space adds tremendous value to Appia as we continue to gain traction and momentum with our open app
marketplace,” said Jud Bowman, founder and CEO, Appia. “We are honored that Appia is now a Venrock company.”

"Independent app stores will continue to be a major driver for the global premium mobile content and applications opportunity," said Vikrant Gandhi of Frost & Sullivan. "An open strategy is important to help support the growth of the smartphone applications industry by providing better choices for consumers, and by giving multiple options to content owners for their distribution strategy."

Frost & Sullivan predicts that total downloads from smartphone app stores are expected to increase globally from 9.6 billion in 2010 to more than 120 billion by 2015.

App developers interested in distributing their applications through Appia’s marketplaces should visit the Appia Developer Program at dev.appia.com.