Many of today and tomorrow’s high-paying jobs require a command of computing concepts and programming languages, but learning such skills from the ground up can be a time-intensive and expensive endeavor.
While there’s high demand in the job market for people with these technical skills, some companies, such as Seattle-based AppSheet, are offering services designed to enable those with only minimal programming knowledge to build functional software applications.
Now AppSheet has $15 million more to advance that aim. The company announced this week it has raised a Series A round, which it plans to use for product development, marketing efforts, and to staff up a new satellite office in Portland, OR. Participating investors included Silicon Valley-based Shasta Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, which is headquartered in Chevy Chase, MD.
A number of companies are hoping to become the provider of choice for people with app development aspirations but little or no technical knowledge. Other such services include AppyPie, AppMakr, AppInstitute, and GoodBarber.
AppSheet’s pitch to people who want to build mobile apps, despite not having a background in software or technology, is that its app-building tools are accessible to anyone who knows enough build a spreadsheet. For businesses, building an app in-house can be more cost-effective than hiring an outside programmer or software development agency to do the work.
According to AppSheet’s website, its platform allows users to develop apps that can pull in data stored by cloud-based software services, such as Google (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GOOGL]]), Dropbox (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DBX]]), and Salesforce (NYSE: [[ticker:CRM]]).
Sample apps that amateur developers have built using AppSheet include tools for tracking inventory, monitoring shipments, and collecting field survey data.
Brian Sabino and Praveen Seshadri co-founded AppSheet in 2014, and the startup raised a $1.5 million seed funding round the following year. AppSheet says it currently has more than 18,000 active app creators whose apps are used by about 110,000 people each month.
