There are plenty of people who come up with a great idea but find themselves stymied by their ability, or inability, to translate the idea into a working reality. This is often a problem with tech ideas and, most recently, ideas for apps. Thunkable has looked to solve that problem by creating a platform where people who do not have coding knowledge can still create the app they have designed. In a similar way to WordPress allowing websites to be built without the user needing coding skills, Thunkable offers a similar service for app creation.
They have created a set of ‘no-code’ tools and it has proved so popular that they have recently announced raising $30 million in a Series B round of funding. They have three million registered users on their platform which has been used to create over six million apps to date. The investors include Owl Ventures which specializes in educational tech, as well as Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA, and PJC. In addition, the American DJ, singer, and producer Diplo is included in this round of investment as well as other names that have not been disclosed. The Thunkable start-up has raised $41 million to date and is expected to be a significant player in this market.
They are not the only start-up to have had this idea, an app to build an app so to speak, but they do believe that they have built the simplest tool for anyone who wants to build a mobile app. They claim to be the most robust platform in the market for no-code mobile apps. They allow users to develop fully customized and integrated apps to generate native Android and iOS apps which can then be directly accessed from Google’s Playstore and Apple’s App Store. They also allow for the creation of Mobile Web files that can be accessed directly from the web. Other players in the no-code app building market include FlutterFlow and AppyPie and Amazon launched its Honeycode platform back in 2020.
Unsurprisingly, this is seen as a key area of the tech future as our lives are increasingly run via apps whether it be for business or leisure. We wake up in the morning and check the weather on an app, check out the news and updates on our social media apps, and maybe attend a work meeting using the Teams or Zoom apps. There is virtually no limit to what app usage can be applied. We can now control the heating and lighting in our house from an app on our phone from wherever we are or monitor our health and exercise targets with apps that run in the background.
One industry that has capitalized on the opportunities that apps provide is the banking sector. While there was reluctance to bank online due to perceived and real security threats, uptake of online banking remained relatively niche. However, the creation of banking and payment apps revolutionized this. Challenger banks like Monzo shook up the market with their customer-friendly interfaces, leaving the big named institutions scrambling to keep up. PayPal brought a whole new level of security and online payment, and transfers became the norm.
This confidence in payment apps has also allowed online casinos to flourish. Gamblers know that the bets they place at top WV online casinos, such as FanDuel Casino, are not only legal but safe and secure. Many of these online casino operators also have great apps that their customers can play on the go, no matter where they are. The same can be said for many eCommerce situations which used to be purely web-based but are now just as commonly accessed by an app-specific to the online store.
Who knows where the next generation of apps will take us on our mobile devices? It seems certain that many of us will step into the Metaverse but there is almost certainly somewhere else that has yet to be imagined.
