Dinesh Lalvani, one of the original founders of Flip Media, has launched a new start-up in Dubai.
Mobile app developer Growl Media has raised $500,000 in its first round of seed funding and launched its first app. A new Arabic language app is to be rolled out in the coming months.
The new company, which is based in Business Bay, already has nine employees, with the team expected to grow in the next few months. It also works with a network of education technologists, writers and storytellers across the world.
Growl Media specialises in the development of mobile apps for children and its aim is to become “the region’s leading publisher of high quality content for mobile devices”. Its first app, Appy Animals,
is an interactive, educational language app designed to teach children Hindi.
Lalvani, the company’s founder and CEO, hopes hyper-local content and world-class design and development will enable the company to stand out in a competitive market. “The idea for the company began when I tried to find a high quality app to teach my own children Hindi,” he said. “We realised there’s very little in the market that can really entertain kids and speak to their culture, and that this was a frustration shared by parents from all backgrounds.
“There are some great children’s apps coming out from the big publishers in the States and Europe, but there’s nothing being developed in the Middle East and Asia that can really meet that standard, which means our children are missing out.”
Thanks to his experience as the co-founder of Flip Media, which was bought by Publicis Groupe last year for an undisclosed sum, Lalvani was able to secure seed-funding to launch a proprietary app development framework, ‘Eureekah’, which provides the foundation for Growl Media’s development.
“Dubai has been the ideal hub for our operation, since it brings together people from all backgrounds and all walks of life, and because it has its own creative energy,” said Lalvani. “However, we’re deliberately a decentralised, global creative collective. We work with the best people in their home markets, because that’s how we ensure we’re delivering what our customers want for their children.”
