Ram and Laxman Papineni started off as avid technology bloggers in their college days, attracting advertisers and followers alike. While the brothers always knew that an entrepreneurial venture was what they were passionate about they took up jobs with prominent MNCs for market exposure and experience, only to quit them to finally give wings to their start-up dream. That’s how AppVirality Inc. came about. A growth toolkit for mobile apps, the product was launched less than four months ago but already has over 600 companies signing up for the technology.
The brothers, who always had a keen interest in technology, spent the better part of their student years blogging about the field. “We soon had advertisers contacting us for our blogs. While the money we earned helped, it also taught us a lot about how things work on the internet,” says Laxman, co-founder of AppVirality. He adds that after gaining some experience in the corporate world, the brothers soon decided to get back to their original plan of setting up a start-up and that’s how AppVirality came about.
“It is essentially a growth hacking toolkit for app developers. With over three million apps available across platforms it is a struggle to keep one’s app visible or even in the top rankings. What AppVirality does is ensures that an app stays right on top of rankings keeping in mind various factors and ensures higher downloads. For example, a referral system is a great way to maintain visibility. A few cab services have used this system in the past where — if you refer their services to acquaintances — you earn points that can be redeemed. It’s a great way to amplify growth while using an existing user base. But this needs a lot of coding. With our technology though, all an app developer has to do is plug into our dashboard and control how their app fares amongst all the others,” he explains.
The technology is set to go live for users within six months. “We got selected by the Microsoft Accelerator group early last year and worked from their Bangalore office to launch our product,” says Laxman.
Another feather that AppVirality Inc. recently added to its hat is that it closed its first round of seed funding from prominent investors. “We happened to meet Rajan Anandan, Google India’s MD, and a casual chat led to him committing to investing in our product. It was a huge leg-up for us and soon other investors joined in, helping us raise our first round of funding,” says Laxman, adding that the company now has six members incubated in the IIIT-H campus working on developing the technology further. “As of now we have several cab services, food ordering sites, gaming apps and news apps using our technology to stay visible and increase downloads,” reveals Laxman.
