The pre-Christmas funding activity has shot through the roof apparently, so that startups are coming out with their funding news on Monday.
Russian “Lego for mobile apps” My-Apps received $1,5 million Life Group after being backed by the startup accelerator Farminers and Igor Matsanyuk, co-founder of Mail.ru Group.
So it must be really good, and the founder of My-Apps Viacheslav Semenchuk sounds very convincing on this video pitching to Forbes startup competition (it was shortlisted amongst other 10 startups).
Yet, I really wonder whether we need more mobile apps.
Stats from Polish mobile app discovery website Xyologic reports estimates for over 1,7 million apps from nearly 500,000 publishers. According to Chris James, the managing editor of the Pocket Gamer who participated with me at a panel discussion at Mobile VAS Conference in Russia last month, receives 100+ emails each day asking for a review.
The competition for allegedly lucrative $8,9 billion dollar market is tremendous (it is about $5,200 per app). It will have $64 billion in a few years, according to Semenchuk (see video), but with help of app builder the number of apps will grow too. So who wants to build more apps?
An answer might be: anyone since My-Apps creators claim the tool is so simple, they have tested its app builder on 13-year-olds. Yet the startup clients include MTS, Etisalat and Yandex.
Competition among app-building companies grows as well. Leaving Western app builders aside, we know Appscend in Romania which is doing so well, it does not seem to need funding (or so I hear). It has over 2500 referral partners, and expanded to the US and Chile.
There is also Croatian ShoutEm app development tool, which is used to build apps for local tourism, social networking, sports teams, music bands, local and national businesses, local media and restaurants.
