How Appboxo's 'apps in a box' turned into a miniapp ecosystem

Growing mobile app market demands more from companies.

Many companies are ramping up their mobile presence through their app, especially in Asia which is one of the fastest-growing markets in the region.

However, the consumer retention is fickle and demands more unique service from the app. This is what Appboxo’s "apps in a box" is for.

“Appboxo is a Singapore-based technology company that provides integration software which allows users to launch miniapps within other native super apps - platforms which offer various services under one umbrella,” said Kaniyet Rayev, chief executive officer and co-founder of Appboxo.

Appboxo was founded when Kaniyet identified the importance and growing reliance on mobile apps in emerging markets which presented a significant opportunity.

He explained that Appboxo wanted to address the problems that rises from strategic partnerships between companies concerning integration of miniapps into apps.

“Only a few large players in the mobile app market have lots of users but are in need of additional ways to properly engage and monetize them. In contrast, many smaller apps have the opposite problem,” Kaniyet explained.

What Appboxo did was develop a suite of developer tools that when integrated into apps, can offer seamless or native-like experience of miniapps. When a company installs its lightweight SDK, that only takes three days of technical work, developers can now deploy their software. Super apps can then go to the showroom, Appboxo’s app store for miniapps, choose the miniapp, and integrate it. Super apps are platforms that offer a variety of services through the use of miniapps.

"The installation of our SDK and the relevant technical work is free. When the super app redirects any of its users to the miniapp and that user successfully completes a transaction on the miniapp platform, both the super app and Appboxo take a commission split from the miniapp,” Kaniyet explained.

In alternative and on a case-by-case basis, Appboxo charges a SaaS fee to power integrations between partners who have existing relationships and commercial terms to provide a superior option to pop-up browsers or API integration.

Right now, they currently have about $1.45m (US$1.1m) in seed funding that was led by FF APAC Scout, 500 Durians fund, Plug and Play Ventures, and Antler. According to Kaniyet, Appboxo is working with some fintech and telecom companies and as a case study, they are working with a consumer app in Singapore.

“In five years, we hope to eventually become the super app platform of choice for the most popular apps across Southeast Asia. But the best thing about our business is that we can easily scale our company across the world and eventually become the global operating system for mobile commerce. We are already discussing partnerships in India, Middle East, Latin America and beyond,” Kaniyet said.