AppSheet
Praveen Seshadri, left, and Brian Sabino, co-founders of AppSheet. (AppSheet Photo)

Google Cloud has acquired AppSheet, a Seattle startup founded in 2014 that helps businesses develop their own data-based apps without requiring a team of developers.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. AppSheet will continue offering its services to existing and new customers, and its employees will join the Google Cloud team.

AppSheet has thousands of customers such as Husqvarna Group, Solvay, Tigo Guatemala, American Electric Power, M&O Partners, Boom Technology, and others that use the software to build “no-code” apps. Use cases include inventory management, CRM, and field service, and span across industries such as manufacturing, construction, scientific, and others. AppSheet was ranked No. 131 on the GeekWire 200, our list of top Pacific Northwest startups.

AppSheet CEO Praveen Seshadri launched AppSheet with Brian Sabino, a former student in his database systems class at Cornell University. They had been exploring how mobile apps can make businesses more productive and discovered that companies were hungry for modestly priced custom-built apps.

In a blog post, Seshadri said Google Cloud “shares our commitment to a no-code platform.”

“As we’ve matured, so has the IT industry, and there is now a tremendous pent-up demand for enterprise automation,” Seshadri wrote. “With the rise of low- and no-code platforms, citizen development has emerged as the strategic way for modern organizations to invest, innovate, and compete.”

Google Cloud exec Amit Zavery touted AppSheet’s “aggressive strategy and roadmap for empowering business people as developers.”

“AppSheet’s ability to power a range of applications — from CRM to field inspections and personalized reporting — combined with Google Cloud’s deep expertise in key verticals, will further enable digital transformation across industries like financial services, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, communication and media & entertainment,” Zavery wrote in a blog post.

Examples of apps that AppSheet’s customers can create include those designed for requesting and tracking equipment maintenance; generating daily construction reports; or completing a pre-surgery checklist. AppSheet has been integrating artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology to further speed the creation of apps.

AppSheet raised a $15 million round this past April. Shasta Ventures led the round, with participation from existing investor New Enterprise Associates. Total funding to date in the company was nearly $20 million.

Seshadri previously spent more than a decade at Microsoft. Sabino also worked at Microsoft before launching a pair of startups and taking on the vice president of technology role at Hulu for one year.

There are a number of other platforms touting themselves as quick and easy app development platforms offered by companies such as Microsoft, K2 Software, Mendix, OutSystems, Betty Blocks, and more. Cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services is also working on its own no-code project, GeekWire reported last year.

Google Cloud recently opened up the first portion of its new five-building campus in Seattle’s South Lake Union, adding 600,000 feet of real estate to the company’s Seattle-area footprint directly across the street from Amazon’s headquarters.

Google’s other Seattle startup acquisition came in 2017 when the tech giant secretly swooped up health monitoring company Senosis.

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