A virtual smartphone keyboard that has become one of the most popular apps on Android handsets has attracted 11.3m in venture funding.
SwiftKey, which is based in London, was developed using doctoral research from the University of Cambridge into artificial intelligence.
News of its designers’ fundraising comes as a study estimates that 529,000 people in the EU are now directly employed in the design and marketing of smartphone and tablet apps, as both blue-chip companies and online start-ups rush to increase their presence on mobile devices.
The report, for lobbying group ACT, highlighted the UK’s “high degree of entrepreneurship and start-up activity” in app development, while noting that most apps were still created by small groups with a high risk of failure.
SwiftKey corrects users’ typing and suggests words based on their past vocabulary, unlike other technologies, which are based around set lists of words.
Its success is testament to the growing power of the Android platform, which barely existed when the company was launched five years ago by friends Jon Reynolds and Ben Medlock.
The app is blocked on Apple iPhones, BlackBerrys and Windows phones, which do not allow third-party apps to interfere with the basic user experience. However, it spent the most weeks as the best-selling paid app in Google’s Play store in 2012.
“Without Android’s success, our possibilities to grow as a company would definitely have been limited,” said Mr Reynolds.
SwiftKey has expanded to about 100 employees, with new offices in San Francisco and Seoul.
It also sells technology directly to handset-makers such as Samsung and BlackBerry and claims 100m people worldwide use its products.
“The medium-term opportunity is leveraging that user base,” said Jo Oliver, a partner at Octopus Ventures, a SwiftKey backer. “It isn’t a one-app wonder and it won’t be one.”
The new financing, led by Index Ventures, is expected to enable the company to double its staff within 18 months and develop new products based around how devices interpret language.
“We see ourselves as a language technology company, not just a keyboard company,” said Mr Reynolds. “If we stayed still our technology would be outdated within a year.”
According to the ACT report, about two-thirds of European jobs created by apps are for computer programmers, with the remainder in sales, marketing and other roles.
However, Jonathan Zuck, head of ACT, said that ratio should equalise as start-ups become commercially focused. “Getting things to market is the next step,” he said.
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*http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/wire-news/typing-app-swiftkey-raises-%25C2%25A311m_945098.html
source : http://techie.id1945.com/2013/09/typing-app-swiftkey-raises-11m/
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