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Google’s Launchpad Accelerator successfully takes off Apply to join the June class

Last month, 24 promising startups from India, Indonesia, and Brazil came to Silicon Valley to participate in Google’s Launchpad Accelerator, a new program that provides late-stage startups (mobile apps) with mentoring and resources to successfully scale in their local economies.

During the intensive two-week Accelerator kickoff in our Mountain View headquarters, Google engineers from 11 product areas, as well as experts from other companies, were on hand to provide startups with mentorship on how to scale and monetize their apps, and ultimately, build successful businesses. Now back in their home countries, the teams will continue developing their products with the support of up to $50,000 in equity-free funding, six more months of ongoing mentorship, and a breadth of developer tools from the Launchpad Accelerator program.

So far, many startup participants have already seen an immediate impact. Two weeks after attending the kickoff event, Brazilian mobile game developer UpBeat Games was featured on Google Play and saw a 1,000% increase in app installations in Asia, as well as a 200% overall increase in active users, by leveraging analytics to better understand their users.

According to UpBeat Games founder Vinicius Heimbeck, “By working one-on-one with the mentors, we learned that we needed to be a data-driven company. We now have the right analytics tools to measure the results of our efforts and to learn from them to optimize the user experience. This all directly impacted our huge success once we were featured on Google Play.”

eFishery, an Indonesian startup that produces smart automated fish feeders, turned its focus on scaling since attending Launchpad Accelerator. “The mentors gave us great insight about how to build a scalable product and how to engage billions of users,” said co-founder and CEO Gibran Chuzaefah Amsi El Farizy. “We received both technical and practical advice on our business, from building back-end technology to embracing failure with the right mindset.”

Apply now for Launchpad Accelerator We are also excited to announce the second class for Launchpad Accelerator which will begin in June 2016.

If you are a startup from India, Indonesia, Brazil, or Mexico (a new addition!) and are interested in participating in the next wave, we encourage you to apply here by March 31. We expect to continue adding more countries to the program in the future, so be on the lookout!

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Android Developer Story RogerVoice takes advantage of beta testing to launch its app on Android first

Posted by Lily Sheringham, Google Play team

RogerVoice is an app which enables people who are hearing impaired to make phone calls through voice recognition and text captions. Founded by Olivier Jeannel, who grew up with more than 80 percent hearing loss, the company successfully raised $35,000 through Kickstarter to get off the ground. Today the team publicly released the app on the Android platform first.

The team behind RogerVoice talk about how material design and beta testing helped them create an interface which is accessible and intuitive to navigate for users.

Learn more about how RogerVoice built its app with the help of Google Play features:

• Material Design: How Material Design helps you create beautiful, engaging apps.
• Beta testing: Learn more about using beta testing on Google Play for your app.
• Developer Console: Make the most of the Google Play Developer Console to publish your apps and grow and engage your user base.

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