Australia’s Kickfolio Rebrands as App.io, Raises Over $1 Million to Aid Global Expansion

We’ve been following Melbourne-based startup Kickfolio pretty closely, from its humble beginnings, to raising its first $100,000 and entering 500 Startups. Today we’re once again ecstatic to announce that our friends at Kickfolio have successfully raised a seed round of $1.075 million, led by Quest VP, with follow-on investments by 500 Startups, PALgenesis, and Scrum Ventures, along with participation from a few other angel investors, such as Maneesh Arora and Ankur Pansari.

For those unfamiliar with Kickfolio, it is an interactive HTML5 marketing tool (live demo above) that allows users to run iOS apps in browsers. The new money received will aid in the team’s expansion efforts, with a focus on its three key markets: Asia, North America, and Europe. It has also attracted three more members on board, which include David Truong, founder at Broccol-E-Games. It also has Maarten ‘t Hooft, who was formally working under Andy Rubin in the Google Android team, joining its board of directors.

Chris also tells us that the company has rebranded as App.io (screenshot of new website below). The team felt that the name Kickfolio no longer represented the company’s core business. Through a very democratic selection running through hundreds of names, the team along with its investors arrived at its new name, App.io, to better reflect the company’s future vision and plans.

Over a Skype call with Chris Nolet, CTO and co-founder at App.io, he told us that he has moved over to San Francisco, where the SF office will manage and figure all the intricate technical details, with the Melbourne office providing broader technical aspects and regional customer support.

“We want to know what people want to do with App.io in Asia”

The company has experienced considerable revenue growth in the recent three months. It has also purchased additional servers in Hong Kong, hoping to grow its presence within Asia for in the upcoming months. In fact, Chris reveals that 30 percent of its users come from Asia, namely South Korea, Japan, China, India, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mongolia. It also currently supports all languages that the iOS platform supports.

Chris also hopes that the App.io team will be able to make more trips to Asia, starting with its first trip to Indonesia presenting at IDByte as part of the Geeks On A Plane (GOAP) tour organized by 500 Startups which will be visiting Southeast Asia this June 1 to 14. Chris said:

We want to know what people want to do with [App.io] in Asia. We hope to get there to meet our customers in Asia. It is [relatively easier for us in the US], since we fit into the culture and are able to identify ourselves easily. We might have a differing view in Asia. With more trips to Asia, we hope to grasp a better idea on how to navigate in the Asia waters.

App.io Facebook integration demo, with comments from co-founder Chris Nolet’s friends.

App.io also allows app developers to embed applications inside Facebook, and has received great feedback (see screenshot on right, click to view larger image).

Chris’ thoughts on coming this far? Here are his words of wisdom to fellow startups, especially those based in Australia: