Finding qualified tech developers proved so difficult that Denver mobile-app maker went and bought a company in India, which increased its number of employees five fold.
AppIt won’t say how much it paid for , based in Hyderabad, India. But Bravemount adds 17 employees to AppIt’s four. Of the 21 full-time employees, 17 are developers.
“We acquired a company of developers in India because of the access to talent,” said Rob Carpenter, CEO at AppIt Ventures. “…AppIt had been struggling to find developers in Denver in order to grow and service the demand of clients, and India has more access to developers as well as lower rates.”
AppIt didn’t directly answer a question on how much it pays its Denver developers versus its India developers but offered a range of what other companies can expect:
“The biggest difference between the two is the range. American developers generally earn between $60,000 and $100,000. In India the range starts at $3,600/year for a junior developer and then can reach $100,000/year for highly skilled senior developers,” Carpenter said.
AppIt and Bravemount worked in the same industry — both develop and design mobile apps for companies around the world. Among AppIt’s app portfolio is Seattle Fish Company, which to let customers check on what’s fresh. Bravemount has apps like and that are not yet been rated on iTunes.
And in today’s world where there are, , 1.6 million Android apps, 1.5 million iOS apps and countless others, it makes sense that companies are outsourcing app development to developers who do only that.
Dice’s Tech Employment Snapshot: First quarter 2015
But finding software developers to make them is tough. According to tech-job site continues to dwindle. It went from 2.5 percent in January to 2.0 percent in March. Within the general tech job category, the unemployment rate of software developers was 1.5 percent, according to the company, which cited U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.
AppIt — which was cofounded by to train more software developers — is just one of many that found a niche in developing other people’s apps. The company also received a $175,000 in venture funding two years ago from angel investors H. Leigh Severance and Mike Barish.
Bravemount becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of AppIt Ventures and will be renamed AppIt Ventures India in the next six months.
