• Future Simple releases first full-blown CRM app for Android

    Mike Butcher

    Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

    Monday, January 30th, 2012

    Chicago-based but Israeli-founded Future Simple, a startup that creates products aimed at small businesses, has released an Android app which hooks into their small business CRM. It’s the first Small Business CRM with a true full native Android app and appears to be the first CRM in the Android Market. They already had an iPhone app.

    Curiously, Salesforce has released only a partial mobile app that is is quite limited. Future Simple is aiming directly at eating into small business users of Highrise and Salesforce. Indeed, so many users of Highrise are switching to Future Simple that the startups says had to build an automated import tool.

    This release is a part of a broader strategy to reach as many platforms as possible. Previously the company had two small business products: PipeJump, a small business sales tracking and CRM application, and QuoteBase, a project/job quote generator. They’ve now been merged into a super-intuitive, drag and drop interfaced product named Base.

    The company is currently in the process of raising a second round of funding. Founded in 2009 by Uzi Shmilovici, and joined by Polish maven Ela Madej (who leads business development), last year it raised a $1.1 million round led OCA Ventures with participation by the I2A Fund, as well as angel investors.