Appboxo has secured USD 1.1 million in seed funding led by FF APAC Scout, a Founders Fund scout vehicle, 500 Startups Southeast Asia focused 500 Durians fund, Plug and Play, and Antler.
Appboxo’s platform enables any app to become a super app. The Singapore-based company aims to revitalize the mobile app industry, scale its platform and further develop its proprietary technology.
Founded in 2019, Appboxo provides integration software that allows the launching of miniapps within other native super apps. Through such integrations, Appboxo aims to act as a link and create an ecosystem of interconnected miniapps, allowing for global partnerships across industries.
To date, the startup counts Booking.com, Klook, Zalora, and multiple other global companies as their partners.
Appboxo was established in 2019 by founders Kaniyet Rayev (CEO) and Nursultan Keneshbekov (CTO) through the Antler Singapore program. The startup just raised USD 1.1 million in seed funding led by FF APAC Scout, Founders Fund’s scout fund, 500 Startups’ Southeast Asia focused 500 Durians fund, Plug and Play, and Antler as participating investors.
Appboxo’s platform enables any app to become a super app using their integration software. Through such integrations, Appboxo aims to act as a link and create an ecosystem of interconnected miniapps, allowing for global partnerships across industries. As an example, using Appboxo, mobile wallet platforms could integrate e-commerce and lifestyle apps such as food delivery and restaurant reservation services under their umbrella; ride-hailing and lifestyle apps could include financial services in their platforms; and media companies could partner with e-commerce services.
There is an obvious importance and growing reliance on mobile apps in emerging markets which presents a significant opportunity for Appboxo and its partners. According to Appboxo’s CEO Kaniyet, companies in regional markets such as Indonesia currently might miss out on opportunities for integrative technology such as Mini Programs, which was pioneered by WeChat and later picked up by other giants such as Alipay, Baidu, and Bytedance. In India, major wallets like Google Pay, Paytm and PhonePe all launched their own miniapp platforms. Appboxo’s platform fills this gap in the market and is suited to meet the growing trend and demand for facilitating the integration of third party services within apps.
“Appboxo is in a unique position to revolutionise the mobile app space via its platform. Asia is currently the fastest growing mobile app market, accounting for 50% of app installs by 2020. Ultimately, our vision is to enable any app to become a super app and offer multiple services via our platform. We are excited to continue growing our platform with new partners across industries,” explains Kaniyet.
“Many companies have lots of users but need additional ways to properly engage and monetize them, while many smaller apps have the opposite problem. Connecting these players through a miniapp ecosystem is a gigantic win-win situation, but right now only the largest tech companies can afford to invest the necessary resources to build out their own miniapp ecosystem. I'm excited to back a team who understands both the tech and the business side of these dynamics and who are stepping up to build a gigantic cross platform miniapp ecosystem.” said Jeff Lonsdale.
The market response has been encouraging. To date, Appboxo counts Booking.com, Klook, Zalora, and 80+ other global companies as their partners. Appboxo also partnered with major enterprise partners such as banks, telcos and mobile wallets to turn their apps into super apps.
“We are excited to work with excellent founders to help them realise their vision of disrupting the tech industry. Appboxo is well primed to facilitate global partnerships between companies in various industries. In the current market of super apps such as WeChat and Alipay, Appboxo offers the opportunity for any app to follow in their footsteps. This would cater to the growing consumer need for an efficient and integrated user experience,” says Vishal Harnal, General Partner, 500 Startups.
“This trend in superapps has been growing but only very large players have been able to create such integrated massive platforms. Appboxo is leading the way to democratise this space and let smaller businesses leverage on the super app phenomenon,” says Jussi Salovaara, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Antler. Alireza Masrour, Plug and Play, General Partner: "We love the vision that the AppBoxo team has, which is to be a Global Distribution System (GDS) for MiniApps that helps globalize app capabilities with their inner connectivity services for any major application in the market."
Appboxo plans to use raised funds to scale its platform and further develop its proprietary technology. Appboxo plans to add new miniapps in travel, ecommerce, finance and lifestyle industries to cover more use cases for integrations by super apps.
About Appboxo:
Appboxo is a Singapore-based technology company that connects miniapps to super apps and powers the integration between them. Appboxo Platform allows apps to offer multiple third-party services and increase revenue by generating commissions from each transaction. Appboxo is currently in talks to partner with large consumer apps across the Southeast Asia market.
About FF APAC Scout, Founders Fund Asia Scout Vehicle:
FF APAC Scout is Founders Fund’s APAC-focused scout vehicle which enables investors to back promising startups. Led by Peter Thiel, Founders Fund is a global, San Francisco based venture capital firm. Notable investments include SpaceX, Facebook, and Palantir.
About 500 Startups:
500 Startups is a venture capital firm on a mission to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs, help them create successful companies at scale, and build thriving global ecosystems. In Southeast Asia, 500 Startups invests through the pioneering 500 Durians family of funds. The 500 Durians funds have backed over 200 companies across multiple sectors from internet to consumer to deep technology. It continues to connect founders with capital, expertise and powerful regional and global networks to help them succeed.
About Plug and Play:
Plug and Play is an early-stage VC and corporate innovation platform headquartered in Silicon Valley with 26 locations around the world. It invests across different industries and supports promising and innovative startups by connecting them to investors and corporations around the world. As of 2020, it has over 1000 portfolio companies which raised a total of $10 billion, and accelerates 1450 startups per year. Some of Plug and Play noteworthy investments include Paypal, Honey, Kustomer, n26, and Dropbox.
About Antler:
Antler is a global early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the defining technology companies of tomorrow. The firm has offices in eleven cities worldwide, across six continents. Founded in Singapore in 2017, Antler is on a mission to fundamentally improve the world by enabling and investing in the world's most exceptional people. Since its launch, Antler has invested in and helped build over 175 companies. Several of these early-stage startups have since secured follow-on investment by top-tier VCs, such as Sequoia and Golden Gate. Of these companies, over 40% have at least one female co-founder, and the founders represent over 60 nationalities. Antler enables exceptional people to build impactful technology startups by building complementary teams, supporting the teams with deep business model validation, and by providing a global platform for scaling their startups.
Appboxo is one of our portfolio startups in Plug and Play APAC. As an in-house venture capital, our goal is to fund the teams that are building the defensible businesses of the future. By leveraging our capital, our network of VCs, and our corporate partners, we give our portfolio companies an added advantage. Join our platform today!
