startups
Verious Launches First Marketplace For Mobile App Components
Today, TechCrunch Disrupt finalist Verious is launching the world’s first marketplace for mobile application components – that is, the libraries, the SDKs (software development kits), the add-ons, the open source code and other third-party services which specifically cater to mobile app developers. Until now, there hasn’t been a centralized repository of these resources.
But Verious isn’t just organizing mobile app components on its site, it’s also offering a way for developers to sell their components to others through a copy-protected licensing system.
According to analysts, the market for mobile application development services is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015, as many independent developers are now working on a combination of consumer-facing apps alongside mobile app component development. That no one has thought to launch a service like this until now is actually somewhat surprising.
With Verious, the goal is to help developers speed their time to market by offering the components they need, but don’t have either the time or resources to build themselves. For example, there’s a 3D globe which consists of 20,000 lines of code, built over the course of 5 months with $50,000 worth of labor. It’s listed on the site for less than $1,000 to license.
Pre-launch, Verious’ founders talked to thousands of developers and have compiled a list of 1,000 components along with $100,000 worth of component requests. The size of this initial catalog demonstrates the need for such a service’s existence in the first place – there are a lot of mobile app components for developers to keep up with!
In addition to organizing the components on the site for easy discovery, mobile app developers are allowed to test out the components in a 30-day free trial. They can also post and “follow” component feature requests, so sellers know which ones to prioritize in their development to meet market demands. In the future, the ability to rate, review and comment on components will be added, too.
The site’s patent-pending License Manager lets sellers enforce different types of licensing models, including annual fees, perpetual fees, volume-based tiered pricing, source code buyout and more. Verious will charge a 20-40% commission on components (20% for charter developers), a referral fee for premier partners listings SDKs, and revenue share for server-side partners.
At launch, Verious supports iOS and Android, but will expand to other platforms as the market demands.
Verious’ management team is composed of industry veterans with CEO Anil Pereira, VP Marketing Don Pitt and Web Strategy/Ops head Michael Coleman. Their combined work experience includes time spent at VeriSign, American Express, DataSphere, VMWare, Samsung, Openwave and TRUSTe.
The company, founded in 2011, is backed by seed and angel investors including Charles River Ventures, X-G Ventures, Mark Britto, Iggy Fanlo, Gil Penchina, Krishna Vedati and others.
Judges Q&A
Expert Judges: Aileen Lee (Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers), Dustin Moskovitz (Asana), Michael Parekh (MPi Capital), Joshua Schachter (Jig)
AL: Estimation of addressable market?
A: 1) App services market – $100 B by 2015, plus app tools market – $30 B by 2015, according to analysts.
DM: Dev tools companies have failed to make business of it. Who is doing it well?
A: Plenty of companies doing marketplace models out there.
MP: Quality control? Rating system?
A: Developers have to produce a sample app with the code, or have an app on the App Store. Yes, ratings, reviews, community are coming.
JS: How to be first stop for developers?
A: Every day, companies are launching SDKs. Companies are working with Verious now to get their libraries listed. They want to be on site to grow their install base.
Luxemi Is A Rent The Runway For Indian Clothes And Jewelry
Leveraging the success of Rent The Runway’s model, Luxemi is launching as an e-commerce site where customers can both borrow or buy Indian apparel and accessories. The site is targeted at a niche audience of South Asian American women who don’t want to spend the money on an expensive Indian outfit, or that don’t live near a shop that sells traditional Indian wear.
Instead of just offering apparel and accessories for sale, Luxemi maintains two completely separate collections: one consisting of apparel and accessories for sale and the other a “borrow closet” consisting of apparel and accessories available for rental. When borrowing, shoppers will select their reservation date, rental period (4 or 10 days) and their size.
The site’s rental price point starts at $78 for traditional Sarees and Salwars and $28 for jewelry (includes a backup size saree blouse to ensure fit, the Luxe Pack for the clothing including pins, Bindis and a garment bag to keep, and free return shipping). Luxemi, which has been open for only a month, has signed up 4200 memberships, and so far the average order size is over $250.
While this is sure to be a hit amongst Indian-American women, it’s questionable whether Luxemi will be able to create a market outside of this ethnic demographic. But the startup says that they have seen a strong interest outside the South Asian community with 40 percent of orders placed by non-Indian customers.
And Luxemi isn’t the first retail site to cater to the Indian-American shopping community. Exclusively.in is another e-commerce site that caters to the Indian diaspora, but with a flash sales model. The company just raised $16 million from Tiger Global, and is growing fast for a niche e-commerce site.
Affectiva raises $5.7M to sense and measure emotion
Affectiva, a Massachusetts start-up spun out of the MIT Media Lab, has nabbed $5.7 million in Series B funding to help it pursue technology which helps recognize and measure human emotions. The new financing was led by Kantar, the consumer insights group for marketing firm WPP and Myrian Capital.
The money will go toward advancing work on Affectiva’s two products, which get at the issue of understanding and gauging human emotions from different directions. Affectiva is working on a technology called Affdex, a piece of software that uses webcams to recognize interest, liking and attention from users. The system uses machine learning and computer vision to understand non-verbal responses and check them against one of the largest databases of facial expressions.
The system can be used to help media companies get quick feedback and consumer reaction or it can help advertisers understand how effective a commercial is. A researcher could quickly narrow down to specific points in a video when users were most engaged or experienced some extreme emotions. Affdex’s cloud-based architecture allows it to scale easily, which democratizes this process and allows many companies to engage in the kind of market research that previously only larger firms could pursue. Affectiva is applying Affdex to media measurement first and is partnering to WPP to integrate Affdex into WPP’s other research tools.
Dave Berman, CEO of Affectiva, told me companies have gone from measuring presence and location and are now looking to understand how people are feeling. He said when done in the right way, with clear opt-in and transparency, people like to share their feelings. He said while Affdex is initially being used as a marketing tool, he sees a bright future in social networking and online gaming.
“Imagine playing video poker with an avatar that can read your face and tell if you’re bluffing,” he said. “The next big wave is interaction with social networking. Think about a social network that knew you liked something based on your face or physiological signals without you having to push a “like” button.”
Affectiva is also pursuing a biometric wrist monitor called Q Sensor that measures electrodermal activity, sometimes known as galvanic skin response, to understand how people are feeling. When combined with other sensors that measure motion and temperature, the Q Sensor can paint a pretty good picture of how relaxed, excited, calm or stressed people are. More than 100 universities and corporations are currently using the sensors to measure anxiety and engagement.
Affectiva, which has about 20 employees, previously raised $2 million in funding from its founders and the Peder Sager Wallenberg Charitable Trust, represented by Lingfield AB. And the company won a $650,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for its work. Berman said the company has a bunch of unannounced projects on the way. If they’re as innovative as what Affectiva is showing now, it’ll be interesting to see how long before someone comes along and tries to buy the company.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
Cleantech Financing Trends: 2010 and BeyondHow China’s troubles are affecting greentechThe Case for Increased M&A in 2011: Actions and Outlooks