For any company to remain relevant, it needs to be tech-savvy. Often times, this means having a user-friendly app, where consumers can access a company’s offerings from the convenience of their smartphone.
But not all companies are equipped with a team of developers who have the time to build a mobile app from scratch. But that’s where Ionic comes in.
The Madison-based startup, which launched in 2012 and is a 2013 Techstars alum, has built a platform that provides a comprehensive set of app-building tools so that developers can build their own apps for both iOS and Android devices.
Ionic works with independent developers and those who are employed by businesses. The startup's founder and CEO Max Lynch described the company as a B2D, or business-to-developer, because they market their product directly to the tech professionals.
“Our philosophy from day one was just get developers using the platform and technology,” Lynch said. “We’ve always gone straight to developers and that’s a strategy that’s worked really well for us because a developer is a developer no matter where they work.”
Now Ionic has millions of developers using their platform, including clients like McDonald’s, Target, Microsoft, Amtrak and AAA. Beer discovery app Untapped also works with Ionic, as does the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The startup, which has raised $12.2 million in funding from investors like Arthur Ventures and Lightbank, employs more than 30 people, 20 of which work out of the Madison headquarters. The others work remotely throughout the country, and even a few live as far as Spain.
Ionic has been used to make consumer-facing apps, but also internal ones that companies use amongst their employees. To be clear, though, Ionic is not building any apps themselves. They only supply the tech that simplifies the app-making process.
“We started the company really trying to go after an underserved part of the developer ecosystem,” Lynch said. “These were people who had experience from the last two decades of the internet, web and desktop explosion, but weren’t able to participate in the mobile and app store economy. We really went after them and tried to give them mobile development tools and technology that worked with their skillset and background.”
Though Ionic does require users to have some knowledge and background in coding, Lynch said he would like to lower the app’s barrier to entry, making it more accessible to someone with no prior coding experience.
The basic version of the platform is free to use, and as developers create bigger and more complicated apps, Ionic begins charging them. But a new feature, called Ionic Pro, is what Lynch said will help the company find additional and more consistent streams of revenue.
The new service allows users who’ve built their apps with Ionic technology to manage those apps going forward. It lets them track errors and deploy updates to their apps remotely.
The cost for the service depends on the size of the company, but Lynch said that for independent developers, Ionic Pro starts at $29. However, some of the startup’s biggest clients pay thousands of dollars for the service. Since launching it at the end of last year, Ionic Pro now has more than 6,000 customers and 73 percent of them work for a company.
“We’ve seen some really great growth on that,” Lynch said. “I think it’s going to be a significant portion of our business.”
