Singapore-Based ‘Web App Development’ Company Raises $1.1M In Seed Funding

Appboxo, a Singapore-based startup web app development company, officially announced that they’ve got enough funding to create an ecosystem of mini-apps to help all developers.

Today, the company announced that it managed to close a $1.1 million in total seed funding supervised by FF APAC Scout, the 500 Durians fund, and early-stage venture capital investors Antler and Plug and Play Ventures. According to the company, the new funding will be allocated to their product development ventures and to produce additional mini-apps to their ecosystem.

Established in 2019, Appboxo offers integration software that lets the user launch different mini-apps inside other types of native super apps programs that provide different services belonging to one classification. These mini-apps belong in a larger app and come with limited features.

The startup company is currently working with approximately ten host apps like Klook, Booking.com, and Zalora. It also manages 80 mini-apps on its dedicated platform. An example of how the host apps utilize mini-apps includes travel-based apps that hook up with hotels, restaurants, and tour activities bookings. Mobile wallets with integrated eCommerce and insurance-buying services are also a good example of this ecosystem.

The company was formed by chief executive officer Kaniyet Rayev and Nursultan Keneshbekov, who is now working as the chief technology officer. They built the company by attending Antler’s incubator program in Singapore.

In a recent interview, Rayev explained that he and Keneshbekov originally wanted to develop an all-inclusive travel app that comes with various travel-related offerings fully integrated into one program.

But according to the company CEO, he and Keneshbekov realized that they could not plug in any third-party services easily when they attempted to develop it. It prompted them to develop ways to help developers create and provide mini-apps and make it a plug-and-play solution.

Today, the mini-app economy is currently isolated, with companies and apps like Grab, Paytm, Meituan, ByteDance, WeChat, and Go-Jek developing mini-apps for their company’s use or run a marketplace for mini-apps for the benefit of their users. However, the W3C Chinese Web Interest Group began to explore new ways to regulate mini-apps in 2019.

The group, consisting of representatives from Baidu, Alibaba, Intel, Huawei, Xiaomi, and China Mobile, release the initial working draft of the white paper back in September 2019. It focuses on the way they can develop mini-apps to become functional across different platforms.

According to Rayev, the paper’s release was very timely because it came out when they were beginning to develop their platform.

Since the startup company is based in Singapore, most of its present users live in Southeast Asia and surrounding countries. But the company CEO also said that Appboxo is looking forward to beginning targeting India in the future. It may also arrive in other parts of Asia in the coming days.

He also said that the super app’s concept would soon arrive in the Western countries, especially since Appboxo has been working with various European partners for quite some time. They are looking forward to creating this technology for American partners as well.