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Venture Capital News: DWNLD Secures $12M

2015-09-17
NEW YORK, NY, DWNLD, a publishing platform that converts websites into apps, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Greylock Partners.
According to Techcrunch, DWNLD, the publishing platform that takes any website and seamlessly turns it into an app, has today announced the close of a $12 million Series A funding round led by Greylock Partners.

The platform, which was created by cofounder and CEO Alexandra Keating and cofounder Fritz Lanman, allows any web publisher to easily transfer all of their content over to a native app, without any coding skills whatsoever.

But beyond that, the DWNLD App Maker gives users the ability to finely customize their apps with various colors, layouts, fonts, etc. so that each DWNLD-created app has its own unique look and feel.

Of course, DWNLD has a paid product that gives users analytics on their app performance, ways to generate revenue through in-app purchases, advertising and paid downloads, as well as the ability to send more (or unlimited) push notifications, with prices starting at $15/month.

But DWNLD also offers a free tier that gives the Average Joe the ability to publish their own app, complete with social media integrations, blog content, etc.

With the new funding, DWNLD has plans to offer a marketplace, so users can easily integrate APIs like Stripe, Twilio, Shopify, and others at cheaper prices (negotiated by DWNLD using the network effect of their thousands of users).

As part of this most recent funding, Greylock's John Lilly is joining the board of directors. Interestingly, Lilly is a pioneer of the web (with a rich history at Mozilla), but sees DWNLD as a wonderful way for web publishers to transfer content over to native app format.

DWNLD has already published more than 2,000 apps on behalf of their users, and has raised a total of $14 million since launching last year.
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