AppCan receives RMB 100 million in Series B funding and announces open source mobile engine

Recently, AppCan, the advocate and leader of hybrid application development in China, released two major pieces of news: it received RMB 100 million in Series B financing led by Lianchuang Yongyi and Pangu Chuangfu, and officially announced the open source of AppCan mobile application engine. It is understood that this open source will fully open the basic engine and underlying framework, plus the open source of plug-ins in November, AppCan.cn is the most thoroughly open source mobile application development platform in China so far. Wang Guochun, the founder of AppCan, Zhengyi Wireless, said, "Through the open source operation of the mobile engine, we can further expand the influence and ecosystem of AppCan, not only contribute to the mobile developer community, but also attract energy from the community, so as to better improve the commercial version and provide higher quality services to large group companies' mobile platform applications. The heavy investment of capital has greatly enhanced AppCan's confidence in the construction of ecosystems such as mobile development, application innovation, and smart hardware."

Founded in 2010, AppCan has always adopted the "free + open" Internet thinking mode to serve the majority of developers. At present, AppCan.cn has more than 700,000 registered developers, created 300,000 applications, and the number of mobile phone installation users exceeds 100 million, making it the largest mobile development exchange community in the industry. AppCan also has good results in the field of enterprise mobile informatization. It has currently served 6,000 corporate customers, including many Fortune 500 companies and government units such as China Eastern Airlines, Sinochem Group, State Grid, Taikang Life Insurance, etc. The solutions have covered the financial, aviation, energy, medical, government and other industries. Its profit model is very clear, combining B2B and B2D, on the one hand to expand brand awareness and user volume, on the other hand to undertake large-scale mobile projects to obtain profits.

Wang Guochun, CEO of Zhengyi Wireless, said, "Open source is the general trend. Currently, AppCan has 700,000 developer users and 6,000 corporate customers, and these numbers are still increasing rapidly. If we still use the old thinking and stick to patented technology, it will be difficult to continue to stay ahead of the market. After open source, users and customers can freely use the AppCan development platform, innovate independently, and customize it. We encourage developers to share application source code and technical experience. Using the snowball model, resources and data will grow exponentially. The resulting aggregation effect will lead AppCan to a healthier and faster development, and ultimately have a positive impact on the entire industry." Of course, open source is not suitable for all companies. It is difficult for companies with unclear profit models, start-up companies, and unstable teams to open source.

The 100 million yuan of financing in the B round will be used mainly in two aspects. On the one hand, the operation and service work after open source: efforts will be made in depth and breadth. In terms of depth, after the underlying framework and plug-ins are open sourced, AppCan will focus on the development of plug-ins and application cases, providing developers with a wealth of application cases and plug-in source codes, and at the same time providing developers with a wealth of commercial application projects to undertake. In terms of breadth, the one-stop mobile development service platform created by AppCan provides overall services including development tools, App innovation, technical training, and operation promotion, which has been favored by developers. At present, AppCan is actively contacting top companies in the industry to provide developers with access to high-quality capabilities such as cloud services, application testing, and application distribution.

On the other hand, AppCan will enter the field of smart hardware starting from 2015. According to Wang Guochun, many people in AppCan's core team have profound experience in mobile hardware R&D and are among the earliest people in China to engage in mobile phone R&D. Currently, AppCan is cooperating with several professional smart hardware providers. The specific content of the cooperation will involve the design, R&D and release of smart hardware, including work phones, smart homes, wearable devices, etc. Smart hardware will be connected with mobile applications, which means that AppCan will provide a mobile application development and release platform that integrates software and hardware in 2015, providing developers and enterprises with a broader and more free mobile support platform.