Apptopia, a marketplace which allows buyers to acquire developed apps and offers sellers varied services, has come up with some additional financing – at a time apps are in demand by tech companies, investors and users.
The amounts involved were not made public, but Apptopia had raised more than $1 million before the latest funding round, according to Silicon Allee.
It is notable that Apptopia offers sellers diverse services connected with the sale of apps – such as valuations, finding buyers and escrow assistance.
Among those taking part in the round were Tim Schumacher and Ulrich Essman, co-founders of Sedo (a domain name marketplace), as well as Eric Kagan, Telegraph Hill Capital and Rothenberg Ventures.
“Apptopia can certainly become for apps what Sedo became for domain names – namely an efficient market place in a fragmented environment,” Schumacher told Silicon Allee.
Already, Apptopia has paid over $5 million to developers who have sold apps via the entity – involving “thousands” of apps.
The money from the new funds will be used for expanding into global app markets.
Schumacher and Essman have a lot of experience to offer Apptopia. They were named Entrepreneurs of the Year by Ernst & Young Germany in 2007. Their experience could help the company take advantage of the current app market, and offer insights on how to find efficiency, make profits as well as see more growth.
“Apps have become the prime mobile navigational items, just like domain names on the web,” Schumacher and Essman said in a joint statement. “Apptopia.com and its awesome team are in a market-leading position to capture this market."
The app sector totaled $70 billion in 2013 and is predicted to jump to $143 billion by 2016, according to a statement from Apptopia. Overall, there are over 2.3 million apps out there. It was predicted in September by Gartner that mobile app stores were to have downloads total 102 billion in 2013, compared to 64 billion in 2012.
In a report by DN Journal, it was recalled how Sedo “grew into a domain trading and monetization powerhouse that the founders eventually sold to United Internet.” Schumacher and Essman hope the same model will work for apps.
Currently, Apptopia “sells all rights to the app, with the buyers then able to market and sell the apps in the Apple and/or Android stores (where they are already offered by the current owners),” DN Journal adds.
Among those the service is targeted to are: investors who seek income and want to acquire a revenue stream; marketers who can increase sales of a promising app; and developers who can improve an existing app, the report said.
“In sharing Apptopia’s solution with advisors, investors, and existing customers, we learned that we had built a platform that reached far beyond the scope we’d originally envisioned, and we believe Apptopia has the ability to alleviate some of the core underlying problems and inefficiencies publishers and app stores are currently facing," Eliran Sapir, CEO of Apptopia, said in a statement.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker 
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