AppVirality Inc, a startup that offers a toolkit to help app developers increase their user base, has raised $500,000 (Rs 3.3 crore) in fresh funding from 18 investors including Chandigarh-based Click Labs and ixigo.com founders Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar.
The US- and Hyderabad-based company plans to focus more on product innovation and increase the team size from 12 to 25 in next 12 months, it said in a statement.
Google India head Rajan Anandan, IndiaMart founder Brijesh Kumar Agrawal, TradeIndia founder Bikky Khosla and Capillary founder Krishna K Mehra also invested in this round.
Other investors who put in money are HT Ventures LLC, Maxence Cacheux, Gaurav Lochan, Jocelyn Goldfein, Zippr founder Aditya Vuchi, 1MG co-founder Gaurav Agarwal, Rimpal Chawla, Munish Jauhar, Shashank Mehrotra, Vikram Chalana, Aakash Singal, Shashank Mehrotra.
AppVirality had raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding in January this year from Google's Anandan and angel investor Ravi Gururaj, besides some early-stage VC investors.
The startup was founded by brothers Ram and Laxman Papineni in October 2014. While Ram has a master’s in electronics, Laxman has studied computer applications. They graduated from Osmania University, Hyderabad. The startup came out of Microsoft Accelerator in May 2014.
“AppVirality’s dramatic growth has been driven by increased demand by app developers, who understand and value our technology," said Laxman Papineni, who is also CEO.
AppVirality is a toolkit for mobile apps that helps developers identify and implement growth techniques without having to code. These include personalized in-app referrals, customer retention and social sharing techniques.
The company claims to have generated more than 1.5 million installs for their customers. Its clients include MakeMyTrip, Bharti Airtel, Quikr, Byjus, Yatra, Paytm, iXiGO, Redbus, Yepme, 1MG, MySmartPrice and Faasos.
AppVirality would compete with the likes of California-based Branch Metrics, which recently raised $18 million in funding, and Canadian startup Tapstream.
Samar Singla, founder, Click Labs, said it is logical for startups to look for synergies to bring best services together for consumers. “AppVirality’s expertise in growth hacking is a great asset to Click Labs for boosting their mobile platforms because both are building solutions that compliment each other," he said.
Click Labs was among investors that recently put Rs 1 crore ($150,000) in angel funding in Gurgaon-based Kronica Medical Services Pvt Ltd, which runs LabStreet, a demand aggregator for diagnostic labs.