cross-platform
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Lilith Games makes time disappear
The Shanghai game maker built a business around progress that continues while you are away. Keeping players happy when they return is the harder part.
TriPlay wanted your music to travel without a passport
A family-photo problem became a bet on media that moves freely between devices. Two decades later, the owner of eMusic is taking that argument from personal collections to music royalties.
Thunkable and the $65,000 app you can build yourself
A designer’s unaffordable quote reveals the wager behind Thunkable: give the person with the problem the tools to build the solution. Native mobile apps, visual blocks and AI prompts make that wager increasingly practical.
FileMaker and the business too awkward for a box
Apple’s software subsidiary, now called Claris, sells the tools to build apps around the way a business actually works. Its most useful lesson starts with a tyre retailer, a failed ERP rollout, and one small repair.
Iru and the hidden cost of one more IT tool
Kandji made its name managing Apple devices. As Iru, it is betting that the expensive part of IT is the work between the tools - and that one shared system can give that time back.
AppMakers USA and the App That Has to Work on Monday
A math game, a plumber’s payroll and a crashing video player reveal what this Los Angeles software shop actually sells: the engineering that starts where the demo ends.
GIMP costs nothing. Keeping it free takes work.
The image editor born at Berkeley still lets anyone retouch, paint and build without a subscription. Behind the free download is a very human operation: volunteer developers, artist patrons and decades of unfinished business.
Automox
Automox is a cloud-native IT automation and endpoint management company that helps organizations patch, configure, and secure Windows, macOS, and Linux devices from a single platform. Founded in 2015 in Boulder, Colorado, its agent-based, server-free approach automates patch management and vulnerability remediation across distributed fleets, and its Otto generative-AI assistant lets IT teams build automation scripts (Worklets) in plain language. The company serves more than 1,500 customers across 30-plus countries and has raised roughly $154 million, including a $110 million Series C led by Insight Partners in 2021.
FlutterFlow
FlutterFlow is a Mountain View-based visual development platform built on Google's Flutter framework. Two ex-Google engineers built it so designers, founders, and engineers could ship native mobile and web apps without writing the boring parts. Today it has more than 1.3 million users in 200+ countries, around 10,000 paying customers, and an AI layer that turns prompts into pages.