AppForge Ready to Forge Ahead in 2001

AppForge, the Atlanta-based provider of application development solutions for handheld and mobile devices, anticipates that 2001 will be a very good year for the company.

Aside from recently signing a licensing agreement to distribute the AppForge Booster on Palm devices, the company is not only attracting attention from Silicon Valley’s movers and shakers, but also winning VC funding, most recently from Draper Atlantic, which invested $6.5 million in Appforge’s first round.

And if all that weren’t enough, here’s one you don’t hear too often these days: AppForge is making money.

“Our program is what’s called ‘platform independent,'” Ken Wiles, AppForge’s CFO, said. “That means that eventually, you’ll be able to write a program once, and it can run on various devices, and beam the program to another device. There are people now who can share data on these different devices, but you can’t share the programs. There are a lot of visual programmers in the world. This allows the everyday user to create very powerful applications in a fraction of the time it would have taken them before.”

Wiles insists that AppForge’s direction will position the company to gain ground in the mobile technologies arena. “The world really is moving towards mobile technologies, and our goal is to be a big provider in this area. Our software will be able to run on those devices themselves. We’re offering technology everyone will eventually need and want.”

And Draper Atlantic, the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast affiliate fund of the leading early stage information technology venture capital firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, thinks AppForge can be as successful as they want to be.

“AppForge is by far the best early stage company we have seen. In an uncertain economic climate, it is terrific to be able to invest in and partner with a company like AppForge, with proven technology, great partnerships, and a backlog of customer demand,” Chris Miller, Principal of Draper Atlantic, said. “Doug Armstrong (of AppForge) is our type of entrepreneur and CEO. He is experienced, well connected, has built a great team and developed a product that fills a big void. We look forward to working with Doug to build Atlanta’s next Billion Dollar Technology Company.”

“We’re very excited about the funding from Draper Atlantic,” Wiles said. “We were very focused on who we wanted to gain capitol from. We wanted Draper’s support, and we’re proud of being successful in our efforts.”

Although AppForge currently has no plans in place for a second round of venture capital, Wiles said the company will stay determined and focused in 2001, while keeping plugged in to future investor opportunities.

“If we can move to two or three platforms quicker, we may move our plans up a bit. But we’re always seeing what opportunities are available,” Wiles said.

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