Low-Code App Development Firm Crowdbotics Secures $22 Million, Tackling Developer Shortage and Burnout

In response to the ongoing shortage of developers and the increasing burnout experienced by those in IT services, low-code development tools like Crowdbotics are gaining popularity due to their ease of use and potential for reducing development time by up to 90%. Crowdbotics has recently announced that they have raised $22 million in funding, backed by a combination of seed and series A investments from companies including Jackson Square Ventures, Homebrew, Bee Partners, UC Berkeley’s House Fund, Harrison Metal, and PacWest.

Low-code platforms enable non-developers from various business units such as HR, finance, and procurement to build custom apps without coding experience. By using visual drag-and-drop interfaces and preconfigured templates, these tools can save enterprises on average $1.7 million per year in operational costs, according to The New Stack.

Founded in 2016 by Anand Kulkarni, who holds a Ph.D. in machine learning and operations research, Berkeley-based firm Crowdbotics provides a platform that helps over 1,400 customers create low-code apps with React Native and Django, even in highly regulated environments like healthcare, finance, education, and defense. These customers can use the platform to develop applications for iOS and Android without having to learn programming languages.

By utilizing a visual editor and deploying to hosting platforms such as Heroku, Crowdbotics users can iterate app screens and data models. The platform generates real code synced to a GitHub repository, allowing for auditing and customization after the fact.

Aside from enabling low-code app development, Crowdbotics also offers managed app development services. Businesses can hire project managers and developers to estimate, scope, build, test, and launch apps. Customers can hire additional development resources from Crowdbotics’ dashboard or use tools that intelligently select the best-fit software for their projects. The platform also features daily monitoring, automatic error tracking, and security updates.

As of May 2021, Crowdbotics claims that over 20,000 apps have been launched on their platform, including apps for critical functions in healthcare, financial trading engines, learning management platforms, and government tools. Users range from teams at Uber, McKinsey, Meta (formerly Facebook), and the U.S. Air Force.

Despite concerns about “lock-in” with low-code vendors and doubts about the ability to build necessary apps using low-code tools, Crowdbotics aims to address these issues by allowing companies access to their app's source code, which can be repurposed as they wish.

In their endeavors to further expand the low-code development industry, Crowdbotics competes with other firms like Webflow, Airtable, and Unqork. Fueled by the increasing adoption of low-code and no-code tools, the market for low-code development platforms is expected to grow to $21.2 billion by 2022, up from $3.8 billion in 2017, as per Forrester's estimation.

As the low-code app development market continues to flourish, AppMaster.io, a robust no-code platform for backend, web, and mobile applications, is another player helping enterprises streamline the app development process in areas such as designing data models, creating business logic, and deploying applications to the cloud. This further contributes to the democratization of app development and boosts the efficiency and innovation of businesses, ultimately making development processes faster and more cost-effective.