Durham's Appia finds its way to $10M from Venrock

Durham’s Appia finds its way to $10M from Venrock

March 31st, 2011

DURHAM, NC – Appia Appia, which operates the world’s largest open smartphone app store, has received a new $10 million C round invesment from Silicon-Valley-based Venrock. The company, which was listed at number 15 on the Wall Street Journal’s recent list of the top U.S. venture-backed companies, raised $15 million last fall.

According to some reports, Appia’s C round may still be open.

Venrock Vice President Dev Khare, vice president has joined the company’s board of directors.

Appia also has partnered with Opera Software, the top Web browser for smartphones, and will power the Opera Mobile Store for more than 100 million users. It also partners with Telcel, Mexico’s largest operator, on 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 Khare. “For established Web and mobile publishers as well as emerging application developers, Appia is fast becoming a key distribution channel to consumers globally.”

“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.

TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:

SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org

Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com

Digital East: www.digitaleast.com

Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com

Join hundreds of Marketing Professionals and Internet Execs at Atlanta’s premier Digital event – Digital Summit 2012
www.digitalsummit.com