Bangalore: ShepHertz Technologies Pvt Ltd, provider of a cloud platform for app developers, said on Monday that it has closed a pre-Series A round of $1.5 million, led by Kae Capital.
The other investors include Mumbai Angels and Blume Ventures, along with independent funds, Sashi Reddi Investment Capital Fund, GrowX Ventures, LetsVenture and India Quotient.
The Gurgaon-based start-up ShepHertz, which has a significant presence in North America, plans to use the money to expand its marketing and sales operations in Northeast Asia, and expand to countries like China, Japan and South Korea.
About 50% of the company’s app revenue comes from North America and Northeast Asia, hence tapping those markets was a priority, according to Siddhartha Chandurkar, chief executive officer of ShepHertz.
“App developers develop at least five to six apps during the life of their companies. I wanted to help them build their apps. Also, I always wanted to build a company with the vision to make a product from India that could be sold abroad,” Chandurkar said.
Founded in July 2010, ShepHertz offers developers multiple products and services on their cloud-based App42 Platform, which has about 15,000 registered apps, including multiple apps built by gaming firm Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd.
Individual developers pay between $20 and $200 to use ShepHertz’s services, while companies are priced differently, said Chandurkar.
Mobile apps are expected to see more than 268 billion downloads and generate revenue of over $77 billion by 2017, becoming one of the most popular computing tools, research firm Gartner has said.
“Most of the apps have a lot of common things, like push notifications, etc. So I think platforms like ShepHertz will become de facto for people who build and develop applications. Also, we’ve invested in the company because they are not thinking of conventional apps for mobile, but also out of the box apps for cars, TVs, internet of things and smart wearables,” said Sheetal Bahl, managing director and chief executive director (CEO), GrowX Ventures.
ShepHertz, whose main focus has been in North America and India, raised seed capital earlier this year from Kae Capital, Mumbai Angels and Blume Ventures.
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