SnapLion raises first round of funding from Orios VP, India Internet Group, Blume Ventures, IAN and SV Angels
SnapLion.com has raised an undisclosed round of funding from Orios Venture Partners, India Internet Group, Blume Ventures, Indian Angel investors including, Rajan Anandan, Sandeep Soni, and Gaurav Sharma, and Silicon Valley Angels including Nickhil Jakatdar(CEO Vuclip, Silicon Valley), and Piyush Shah.
‘It’s a big validation of our business model. This fresh round of investment will be used to improve our core platform and make our, already world-class, platform the best in the world. We will also use these funds to fuel global expansion,’ said Nikhil Sama, Co-founder & CEO, SnapLion.
Founded in 2011, SnapLion is a ‘do-it-yourself’ platform that enables anyone to build beautiful, custom mobile apps within a few hours, with no required coding skills, and at a price lower than that of a restaurant dinner. These apps can be updated with new content and design on the fly, in real time, by updating the back end CMS at Snaplion.com.
Restaurants, musicians, artists, designers, venues, event promoters, record labels, photographers or anyone can create and manage their own iPhone and Android apps quickly, easily and inexpensively.
When asked as to why a business needs a mobile app today, Nikhil replied, “The smartphone is the first computing device that is within 9 feet of consumers 24 hours a day. And with a mobile app, brands can be within 9 feet of their customers at all times. It really is an unprecedented opportunity for smart brands to leverage.”
He further added, “Today, the independent thinkers and opinion leaders are building custom apps with SnapLion. These brands will benefit most from their custom apps. Within a year, every brand that matters will follow with a custom app of its own.”
A battle of the sales people
Snaplion's funding is interesting as it now joins the ranks of companies like GENWI. There have been quite a few similar companies that have come out in the past and many of them, like Snaplion, chose to start with addressing a niche audience. After having interviewed quite a few similar businesses, it is clear that technology isn't the main differentiator here, as most of these app building platforms now have a generic list of features.
The winner among these kind of companies will be one with the best sales team; the success of such companies lies in it's sales force's ability to capitalize on one vertical and scale it across multiple verticals. This is something Snaplion has been able to do. It started with artists, hospitality, wellness, events and sports. It has signed up some marquee clients like Kings XI Punjab and Anoushka Shankar.
We have reached out to the Snaplion team for further updates. Stay tuned as we bring you more from this story.