Not too many Silicon Valley tech companies are going after both the China and India markets even though that's where the biggest opportunities exist for many tech companies going after fast growth and profitability.
One company that is ahead on this front is mobile app search engine Quixey in Mountain View. China followed by India are top priority markets for Quixey, COO Guru Gowrappan told me during an interview this week.
Already, China accounts for 50 percent of the search app's volume and some 20 to 30 percent of revenues -- on par with the U.S. market, Gowrappan revealed. India, a market that skipped right over the desktop generation, lags on revenue so far for Quixey, but should speed up within two to three years, he added.
It helps to have a COO with international perspective and experience working with leading businesses in key global markets. Before joining Quixey two years ago, Gowrappan managed the IPO process and led the M&A strategy for Zynga while scaling up the gaming company's business in Japan. He gained further experience at
Known as a fixer guru, Gowrappan has led Quixey on a fast expansion. The team has grown from 30 people two years ago to 200 today, with small teams in Beijing and Bangalore and a research and development hub in Israel.
If you think it's fun or easy, consider that Gowrappan spends at least two weeks each month in China and India. His mission is to build teams, seal partnerships (half of them are in Asia), make acquisitions, and work on product development and marketing. It's all a part of executing the vision of building the next-generation mobile search with deep linking, making search for apps as easy as searching the web.
It helps to have a partner such as Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on this journey. Alibaba led a $50 million financing in Quixey in October 2013 along with GGV Capital, TransLink Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Atlantic Bridge, WI Harper and US Venture Partners and other leading firms. A year later, in October 2014, Alibaba integrated Quixey's search technology in its YunOS smartphone operating system for powering Taobao's online shopping site and UCWeb's Chinese browser.
In India, Quixey got a major boost by acquiring Bangalore-based mobile application startup Dexetra in November 2014 for some $10 million to $15 million and absorbing the 15-member team for its new Indian office.
The efforts are paying off. Quixey's volume has grown 8 to 10 times in the last year or so, the COO says. Monetizing all that traffic through models built around search advertising and transactions from some 100 million queries monthly is another stepping stone on owning the mobile search app market.
Quixey and CEOs of U.S. tech companies scaling up in Asia's emerging markets will be speaking at Silicon Dragon, Feb. 5, in Palo Alto.
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