Shortly after Korea-based couple app Between announced their KRW3 billion funding, Singapore based LoveByte launches their long-awaited Android app.
Launched back in July last year, LoveByte has been downloaded more than 40,000 times. The couple focused app also recently secured their seed funding from Crystal Horse Investment Ventures along with Ruvento Ventures. Together with investors’ support, the funding round has helped LoveByte accelerate its development of the Android version.
To celebrate Valentine’s Day and the launch of the Android version with their fans, LoveByte also took this opportunity to partner AsiaFashionInc.com for their upcoming Valentine’s Day Campaign. Prizes include a S$200 voucher sponsored by AsiaFashionInc.com so do keep a lookout for the Instagram photo campaign which will be launched on February 1st.
Read also: 4 startups hook up to spice up love in Singapore
What makes users hang around LoveByte? Co-founder Steve Sng thinks that its the cute design of LoveByte. Steve told us that many LoveByte users took screenshots of their profile page and share them on popular photo sharing app Instagram. Other than that, the scratchcard feature which suggest activities for couples are often mentioned as well as one of the most liked feature of LoveByte.
Founder Steve worries about engineering talent in Singapore
“There is a worrying lack of engineering talent in Singapore who want to work in startups. Despite our modest early succes, we found it hard to find good Android and iOS developers in Singapore. Also, there aren’t many senior engineers who have the experience in scaling system. While we can still find good Android and iOS developers from nearby countries, it’s almost mission impossible to lure those rare scalability experts who only work in big MNCs. Still, we are able to manage the scalability challenge so far with the help of the Amazon Web Services team in Singapore.”
Read also: Singapore, where has all your talent gone?
Between funding means no Korea and Japan for the moment
Of course, we also spoke to Steve on his thoughts behind Between’s recent funding round.
“Between’s funding is important for us; US$3m is not big enough for them to compete in so many countries but it is big enough to prove that couple apps are not just angel investors’ fantasy. I expect more second round funding for couple apps to follow soon.
Competition with Between is inevitable now but we will try to avoid competing with them head-on. So that means no Korea and Japan for the moment. But we will compete with them in other countries where they are not deeply established yet. Also, innovation will continue to play a huge part in our competitive strategy. I think Between has an amazing marketing and engineering achievement. It’s not easy to scale to 900,000 monthly active users without bogging down the system. But product-wise, I think Pair and Avocado from US are more innovative and specialized for couples. Similarly, LoveByte has features such as scratchcards and gender-based stickers that make it more like a couple app and less like any other chat or photo-sharing app. We will continue to make LoveByte more special for couples.”
The post LoveByte launches Android app, staying out of Korea and Japan for now appeared first on e27.
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