StarApps, the company behind some of the most widely installed product merchandising apps on the Shopify App Store, today announced the acquisition of enterprise mobile app platform AppMaker in an all-cash deal.
The deal lands in the middle of a defining shift in ecommerce. With paid customer acquisition getting more expensive every year, brands are moving budget and attention toward retention and channels they own outright. Native mobile apps sit at the top of that list, consistently driving the strongest repeat purchase behavior of any channel a brand controls.
Yet for most Shopify merchants, apps have remained an either-or choice between templated products with limited flexibility and expensive custom builds. As ecommerce brands increasingly look to strengthen customer retention and build more personalized shopping experiences across channels, that trade-off has become the constraint this acquisition is built to remove.
Founded in 2016, StarApps has grown into one of the most widely adopted app developers in the Shopify ecosystem, generating more than $6 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) without outside funding. Today, its merchandising apps are trusted by more than 30,000 merchants, including more than 2,500 stores on Shopify Plus, helping brands optimize product discovery, merchandising and the online shopping experience.
AppMaker powers native mobile apps for more than 200 enterprise brands, which together process over $100 million in annual gross merchandise value (GMV) through their apps. The platform helps Shopify brands build fully customized, high-converting native mobile apps designed for retention and repeat revenue.
But its defining feature is an open architecture model: where most mobile app platforms lock brands into a fixed product roadmap, AppMaker lets a brand’s own tech team, or its Shopify development partners, build custom features directly on top of the platform. That means merchants avoid long waits in an external provider’s queue every time they request a custom-built feature.
Customers using AppMaker have reported up to 3x higher conversion rates, 28% revenue growth within a year, a 5x increase in customer lifetime value, and up to 30% reductions in ad spend, demonstrating the growing role native mobile apps play in ecommerce performance. Together, the companies bring those capabilities onto a single platform, giving brands greater control over two of the biggest drivers of ecommerce growth: conversion and retention.
For the more than 2,500 Shopify Plus merchants already working with StarApps, mobile apps are the logical next investment, and StarApps now has the platform to power their next phase of growth. Ultimately, the acquisition brings together two sides of the same customer base.
“We’ve spent years helping merchants improve how customers shop online,” said Shashank Agrawal, Founder of StarApps. “The next step was helping brands nurture stronger relationships after that first purchase. AppMaker, which has achieved an exceptional enterprise platform that complements what we do, allows us to support merchants across a much larger part of the customer journey. AppMaker is the perfect fit for what we’re trying to achieve on an enterprise level.”
“Mobile apps are the most powerful retention channel a brand can own,” added Saleeh K, Founder of AppMaker. “Our customers consistently see some of their highest repeat purchase rates and strongest loyalty metrics through their app. Joining forces with StarApps allows us to bring this impact to many more brands, at scale.”
AppMaker will continue supporting its existing customers and partners while leveraging StarApps’ scale and distribution on Shopify. Together, the two companies will continue developing software and architectures that enable ecommerce brands to create faster, more personalized and higher-converting shopping experiences across web and mobile.
