Fleksy raises Series A to expand its keyboard SDK biz after 10x growth

Barcelona-based mobile keyboard software maker, Fleksy, has bagged a $1.6 million Series A to cement a pivot to b2b for its white-label SDK for Android and iOS.

The round is led by Spanish asset management firm, Inveready, with follow on funding from some of the startup’s existing investors: SOSV and Simile Venture Partners.

The Series A brings the team’s total raised to date to just under $3M (€2.5M) since the business was founded back in 2015.

The AI keyboard maker has been a long time player in the third party smartphone keyboard space, initially developing a productivity-focused keyboard called ThingThing — before acquiring the assets of better known US-based custom keyboard Fleksy (which had gone into stasis after its dev team got acquired by Pinterest) and making developing Fleksy the full focus.

However monetizing in the consumer custom keyboard space is tough going, with features like next word prediction and swipe inputting now baked into native smartphone keyboards, reducing the value of a third party add-on.

Tech giants like Apple and Google also throw their weight around in peculiar ways. (See, for eg, the flaky implementation of third party keyboards on iOS which helps dissuade users from switching away from Apple’s native keyboard. Or this unfun thing Google’s Play Store did for a while.)

So, last year, Fleksy rolled out an SDK — licensing its keyboard tech to other app makers and businesses who want powerfully predictive, context-specific, custom AI keyboard software which they can tint, brand and adapt in all sorts of ways.

The keyboard SDK could also be used by third parties to learn more about their users and/or seek to drive their own sales.

Among potential features which clients can implement via the SDK that it lists on its website are the ability to bake context-specific advertising into the keyboard (aka, “hyper-contextually suggest products and services or set triggers to show your brand in any app at the opportune moment”); and a forthcoming CRM feature that Fleksy says will “enable shops to send marketing materials, invoices, updates, tasks, and even collect payment from the keyboard.”

Security focused features are also touted as “coming soon” — with custom tweaks that it says could be used to “prevent data leaks and sensitive information from getting out, monitor at-risk employees, Secure messages, prevent fraud.”

Alongside this b2b play, Fleksy continues playing in the consumer space — where it strongly emphasizes user privacy as a differentiator for its software vs alternatives like Google’s Gboard (which sends users’ search data to Google) — and most recently it was trying to entice consumers with art keyboards.

But its center of gravity has clearly shifted to b2b. Hence foregrounding ‘Fleksy for Business’ branding on its website, which has also had a deeptech aesthetic design makeover.

The consumer keyboard will still stick around, though — for the hardcore fans and, doubtless, as a useful showcase/testbed.

“Consumer is hard when the giants don’t compete equally. See Apple mess and Google mess around that. So we found our profitable niche: Helping others build an outstanding keyboard experience and beyond, via license fees,” says Fleksy’s CEO Olivier Plante, who was also CEO and co-founder of ThingThing. “It’s hard to build what we have built, so it’s now a no brainer for these digital companies.”

“Fleksy SDK gives all the tools that a company needs to thrive in their own rationale,” he also tells us when we raise the (privacy) question of how third parties might seek to use its keyboard tech to data-mine their own users. “Fleksy plays a technological role here only. We are not associated with a client’s own privacy stance.”

But he adds: “To be clear, Fleksy Consumer Apps will always be private — we don’t change our rationale there.”

Fleksy says it now has “dozens” of companies licensing its tech — and touts 50 more in its “pipeline”. It also says revenue for its SDK business has grown 10x in a year.

This uplift explains the relatively modest size of the Series A, per Plante.

“We only needed this because we are generating quite a lot of money at the moment,” he tells TechCrunch, adding that the reason for raising a Series A now is to “expand faster”.

The new funding will be used for growth, hiring (to build out its 13-strong team) and to expand its portfolio of clients.

Fleksy’s best markets for licensing the keyboard tech to currently are the US and Europe but Plante says it has customers all over the world.

The SDK is also attracting a broad mix of customers — from digital health and fintech to gaming.

“We have so many leads looking for a keyboard experience — as you can see under /solutions/ on the website — these industries — and even more will all be powered by Fleksy tech,” he suggests.

“We have clients from all types with different needs and because we have built everything in-house — no third party’s black-box — we are able to modify everything for them. Which no other company can provide today. So companies in digital health for example have a profitable company to partner with who has full control over its tech stack,” he adds.

“Fleksy SDK can be modified in many ways: From the layout, dictionary all the way to the core engines that power our autocorrect, predictions, sentiment and more. It’s what makes us the right choice but, as you know, the vision is much larger — ‘Typing on a screen will be typing on Fleksy’ in the future.”

As part of the Series A funding round, Inveready’s Ignacio Fonts is joining Fleksy’s board.

Commenting in a statement, Fonts said: “We are thrilled to join the Fleksy team, which has been able to conquer a worldwide leadership position in keyboard technology, one of the control points of personal computing (phone, mobile, desktops) devices. This round will help them accelerate the development of a very compelling roadmap that will unveil to users new ways to interact with their devices and will provide companies new insights about their customers.”

Google’s Play Store is giving an age-rating finger to Fleksy, a Gboard rival 🖕

Platform power is a helluva a drug. Do a search on Google’s Play store in Europe and you’ll find the company’s own Gboard app has an age rating of PEGI 3 — aka the pan-European game information labelling system which signifies content is suitable for all age groups.

PEGI 3 means it may still contain a little cartoon violence. Say, for example, an emoji fist or middle finger.

Now do a search on Play for the rival Fleksy keyboard app and you’ll find it has a PEGI 12 age rating. This label signifies the rated content can contain slightly more graphic fantasy violence and mild bad language.

The discrepancy in labelling suggests there’s a material difference between Gboard and Fleksy — in terms of the content you might encounter. Yet both are pretty similar keyboard apps — with features like predictive emoji and baked in GIFs. Gboard also lets you create custom emoji. While Fleksy puts mini apps at your fingertips.

A more major difference is that Gboard is made by Play Store owner and platform controller, Google. Whereas Fleksy is an indie keyboard that since 2017 has been developed by ThingThing, a startup based out of Spain.

Fleksy’s keyboard didn’t used to carry a 12+ age rating — this is a new development. Not based on its content changing but based on Google enforcing its Play Store policies differently.

The Fleksy app, which has been on the Play Store for around eight years at this point — and per Play Store install stats has had more than 5M downloads to date — was PEGI 3 rating until earlier this month. But then Google stepped in and forced the team to up the rating to 12. Which means the Play Store description for Fleksy in Europe now rates it PEGI 12 and specifies it contains “Mild Swearing”.

Screenshot 2019 10 23 at 12.39.45

The Play store’s system for age ratings requires developers to fill in a content ratings form, responding to a series of questions about their app’s content, in order to obtain a suggested rating.

Fleksy’s team have done so over the years — and come up with the PEGI 3 rating without issue. But this month they found they were being issued the questionnaire multiple times and then that their latest app update was blocked without explanation — meaning they had to reach out to Play Developer Support to ask what was going wrong.

After some email back and forth with support staff they were told that the app contained age inappropriate emoji content. Here’s what Google wrote:

During review, we found that the content rating is not accurate for your app… Content ratings are used to inform consumers, especially parents, of potentially objectionable content that exists within an app.

For example, we found that your app contains content (e.g. emoji) that is not appropriate for all ages. Please refer to the attached screenshot.

In the attached screenshot Google’s staff fingered the middle finger emoji as the reason for blocking the update:

Fleksy Play review emoji violation

 

“We never thought a simple emoji is meant to be 12+,” ThingThing CEO Olivier Plante tells us.

With their update rejected the team was forced to raise the rating of Fleksy to PEGI 12 — just to get their update unblocked so they could push out a round of bug fixes for the app.

That’s not the end of the saga, though. Google’s Play Store team is still not happy with the regional age rating for Fleksy — and wants to push the rating even higher — claiming, in a subsequent email, that “your app contains mature content (e.g. emoji) and should have higher rating”.

Now, to be crystal clear, Google’s own Gboard app also contains the middle finger emoji. We are 100% sure of this because we double-checked…

Gboard finger

Emojis available on Google’s Gboard keyboard, including the ‘screw you’ middle finger. Photo credit: Romain Dillet/TechCrunch

This is not surprising. Pretty much any smartphone keyboard — native or add-on — would contain this symbol because it’s a totally standard emoji.

But when Plante pointed out to Google that the middle finger emoji can be found in both Fleksy’s and Gboard’s keyboards — and asked them to drop Fleksy’s rating back to PEGI 3 like Gboard — the Play team did not respond.

A PEGI 16 rating means the depiction of violence (or sexual activity) “reaches a stage that looks the same as would be expected in real life”, per official guidance on the labels, while the use of bad language can be “more extreme”, and content may include the use of tobacco, alcohol or illegal drugs.

And remember Google is objecting to “mature” emoji. So perhaps its app reviewers have been clutching at their pearls after finding other standard emojis which depict stuff like glasses of beer, martinis and wine… 🤦‍♀️

Over on the US Play Store, meanwhile, the Fleksy app is rated “teen”.

While Gboard is — yup, you guessed it! — ‘E for Everyone’… 🤔

image 1 1

 

Plante says the double standard Google is imposing on its own app vs third party keyboards is infuriating, and he accuses the platform giant of anti-competitive behavior.

“We’re all-in for competition, it’s healthy… but incumbent players like Google playing it unfair, making their keyboard 3+ with identical emojis, is another showcase of abuse of power,” he tells TechCrunch.

A quick search of the Play Store for other third party keyboard apps unearths a mixture of ratings — most rated PEGI 3 (such as Microsoft-owned SwiftKey and Grammarly Keyboard); some PEGI 12 (such as Facemoji Emoji Keyboard which, per Play Store’s summary contains “violence”).

Only one that we could find among the top listed keyboard apps has a PEGI 16 rating.

This is an app called Classic Big Keyboard — whose listing specifies it contains “Strong Language” (and what keyboard might not, frankly!?). Though, judging by the Play store screenshots, it appears to be a fairly bog standard keyboard that simply offers adjustable key sizes. As well as, yes, standard emoji.

“It came as a surprise,” says Plante describing how the trouble with Play started. “At first, in the past weeks, we started to fill in the rating reviews and I got constant emails the rating form needed to be filled with no details as why we needed to revise it so often (6 times) and then this last week we got rejected for the same reason. This emoji was in our product since day 1 of its existence.”

Asked whether he can think of any trigger for Fleksy to come under scrutiny by Play store reviewers now, he says: “We don’t know why but for sure we’re progressing nicely in the penetration of our keyboard. We’re growing fast for sure but unsure this is the reason.”

“I suspect someone is doubling down on competitive keyboards over there as they lost quite some grip of their search business via the alternative browsers in Europe…. Perhaps there is a correlation?” he adds, referring to the European Commission’s antitrust decision against Google Android last year — when the tech giant was hit with a $5BN fine for various breaches of EU competition law. A fine which it’s appealing.

“I’ll continue to fight for a fair market and am glad that Europe is leading the way in this,” adds Plante.

Following the EU antitrust ruling against Android, which Google is legally compelled to comply with during any appeals process, it now displays choice screens to Android users in Europe — offering alternative search engines and browsers for download, alongside Google’s own dominate search  and browser (Chrome) apps.

However the company still retains plenty of levers it can pull and push to influence the presentation of content within its dominant Play Store — influencing how rival apps are perceived by Android users and so whether or not they choose to download them.

So requiring that a keyboard app rival gets badged with a much higher age rating than Google’s own keyboard app isn’t a good look to say the least.

We reached out to Google for an explanation about the discrepancy in age ratings between Fleksy and Gboard and will update this report with any further response. At first glance a spokesman agreed with us that the situation looks odd.