1Mby1M Deal Radar 2010: Applico, New York City

More than ever, there’s an app for that. Applico, with expertise in visual design/user experience and mobile engineering, designs and develops custom mobile applications and mobile websites for brands and agencies.

The New York City–based company was founded in 2009 by Alex Moazed, who is its president and CEO. He is in charge of the management and strategic direction of the company. He has worked with a broad range of digital, creative, and interactive agencies as well as marketing, technology, and Fortune 500 companies.

The Apple App Store has more than 200,000 apps and the Android Marketplace more than 75,000. Roughly 75,000 apps are made each year. Based on the assumption that approximately 10% of apps are of high quality and the average cost of developing them is $15,000, there’s a total addressable market of approximately $112 million. Pricing is determined by how many hours it takes to design and develop the product, and Applico’s projects usually range from $25,000 to more than $100,000.

Applico began by building applications for the BlackBerry platform and expanded as it gained traction. It now also serves the Android, Apple, Symbian, and Windows 7 platforms. The company creates apps for a variety of industries: Clients include AT&T, Men’s Health, Rodale, and Omnicom, among others. For Men’s Health, Applico developed a BlackBerry app that allows users to store their exercise statistics, design exercise plans, and view photo demonstrations and text descriptions of exercises. The app NYC Transit shows timetables for services of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Going deeper, for the security firm Maxxess, Applico created an app that allows Maxxess to inform its clients, which include universities, airports, and palaces, with a way to contact their personnel with critical information. For example, Maxxess can now ask each employee to reply and confirm if he or she is okay in the event of a disaster; use GPS to identify who was in the area and the last location of missing persons; and send messages to nearby personnel to gather in a safe place and to provide support to those who may have been hurt. Moazed says that even a year ago, developing such a technology was not possible, but with the faster develop of smartphones, which can hold a great deal of information, Applico was able to create Ambit, a security platform that had universal access but at the same time limited exposure, to protect it.

The competitive landscape is very fragmented. Applico considers Phonevalley, which focuses on communications apps, and Big Spaceship, another NYC–based digital creative agency. The development and design teams are in-house versus other companies, which outsource these functions.

Moazed started the company by maxing out his credit cards and making one app. While Applico is always willing to discuss potential investment opportunities, it has yet to take any outside capital. All growth has been organic; the company is cash flow positive and able to grow off the revenue it earns. Revenues are above $1 million and have grown 300% year over year.

The growth strategy is to keep expanding the client base and offer mobile suites of services. Applico is also starting to diversify and offer existing clients social networking services, such as making Facebook apps. There are no plans for an exit at this point.

[Note: For readers in the New York City area, Moazed will speak at the SMX East Conference on October 4–6.]

Recommended Reading
Deal Radar 2010: appssavvvy
Interview with Alex Moazed (from MO.com)

This segment is a part in the series : 1Mby1M Deal Radar 2010