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.
Presentation:
Backstage interview: