AppGratis completes a $13.5m A-Round to strengthen global leadership in mobile app discovery.
Clipperton Finance acted as Sole Manager of the transaction.
Paris, London –January 06, 2013 – Clipperton Finance, a leading European corporate finance boutique dedicated to the High Tech and Media industries, today announced the closing of a $13.5 million A-round for AppGratis, the leading mobile app discovery platform. The transaction was a mix of equity & debt, all equity being brought by Iris Capital and Orange Digital Ventures.
AppGratis was founded in 2008 by Simon Dawlat from a daily email newsletter shared among friends featuring his top app picks. AppGratis has since developed a large international audience approaching 3 million daily users in 30 countries, with most of it’s users in the US and UK markets, Europe, Latin America and since early 2013 Japan. The company has also designed a profitable business model, enabling app developers to solve one of the most complex pain points of the mobile industry: app discovery. Through AppGratis recommendation and personalized recommandations, developers can market their apps globally in high volumes and on a pay-per-download basis, while users discover new relevant applications in a fun & deal-driven mobile experience.
“Our app recommendations are tailored over time to user preferences, which drives high success rates. When we feature an app, we deliver in the 500k-1mio app installs that day. This first external financing is driven by our ambition to accelerate our already well advanced international expansion plan and establish indisputable leadership in App Discovery by the end of 2013. It will also fuel our HR plan to recruit top engineering and advertising talent. Working with Clipperton was a positive experience and helped us conduct the process in a highly professional and time-effective fashion. says Simon Dawlat, AppGratis’ CEO and founder.
Nicolas von Bulow and Thibaut Revel, the partners of Clipperton in charge of this transaction commented: “AppGratis is on an outstanding trajectory, having built a truly international and profitable mobile marketing and ad technology business in less than two years. We are delighted to have advised the company on this acceleration deal.” This financing represents Clipperton’s third transaction in less than two years in the adtech space (after VideoPlaza B-Round and Dailymotion’ sale to Orange), underlining its strong focus on the new generation of adtech players in Europe.
For more information, please contact:
Clipperton Finance
Nicolas von Bulow, Partner, nvonbulow@clipperton.net
Thibaut Revel, Partner, trevel@clipperton.net
About Clipperton Finance
Clipperton Finance is a European corporate finance boutique exclusively dedicated to the HighTech and Media industries. Clipperton Finance advises high growth companies on financial transactions, fundraisings, capital increases and Mergers & Acquisitions. With a team based in Berlin, London and Paris and an international reach, Clipperton Finance is a European leader in the sector. The team has successfully structured more than fifty high level international transactions in the European High Tech sector. For more information, visit www.clipperton.net