Applauze is an iOS mobile event app launched in March 2013 by Kiran Bellubbi and headquartered in Mountain View, California. The app uses data analytics and machine learning to aggregate listings from primary providers and secondary markets and recommend relevant concerts, theater productions, sports games and community events to users. Users can purchase tickets through the app and share them with friends. The service is available across more than 40 U.S. and Canadian cities. Financially, the company raised $7.2m in funding in 2013, with backing from noted venture investors. 955 Dreams describes itself as a publishing company that builds mobile apps and writes its own artist reviews for Band of the Day. Its core product, Band of the Day, features free full songs, artist bios, reviews, music videos and daily editorial content and was an iPhone App of the Year runner-up. The company released a tablet-optimized iPad version that leverages the larger screen while keeping the app small (about 10 MB) and refined the UI and backend for the experience. Band of the Day saw rapid adoption — hundreds of thousands of users in the first weeks and over half a million users in four months — and the company expects to reach several million users by the end of the year. The platform also powers other titles (The History of Jazz; On the Way to Woodstock), several of which were App of the Week or in the App Store Hall of Fame. 955 Dreams is experimenting with Android and preparing to make its app publishing platform available to a small number of select content partners. 955 Dreams creates immersive, multimedia iPad apps that combine pictures, videos and sound clips to deliver interactive explorations of musical subjects. Its breakout product, The History of Jazz, is a $9.99 app that Apple featured shortly after release, driving a rapid increase in sales. The app includes one-click iTunes purchase buttons and has produced strong affiliate conversion rates (reported around 14–22%). Co-founder Kiran Bellubbi emphasizes designing both shallow and deep experiences tailored to the iPad, and the team is expanding the same format across different music genres and individual-artist titles. Financially the company raised a $250,000 seed round and reported it recouped roughly half of that amount in the first month of sales; they say revenue has continued and is being reinvested into product development. 955 Dreams is prioritizing the Apple platform and is not in a rush to develop for Android.

Total raised

$11M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Oct 2013