Siasto has received some more support to build out its task management service with $750,000 from One Asia Investment Partners, Y Combinator, Start Fund and other angel investors.
Siasto has developed a robust platform that TechCrunch’s Eric Eldon wrote about in detail last year. Last November, the company added a news feed to the service. With the new funding, Siasto will now extend its development to focus more on its mobile collaboration service. The funding will also be used to expand its service into Asia.
Co-founder Niccolo Pantucci says its mobile strategy is to build an app store in Siasto that features distinct apps that take from Siasto but that have specific functions. There might be linking between different components but each will act as a separate app.
The intent is to replicate the power that Siasto has in the browser but with its own form and function unique to the mobile experience. He compared it to the Sunrise app, now available on the iPhone.
“Similar to how Facebook has apps for the different parts of its functionality, so Siasto will have a task’s app that will be separate from a discussions app, and an events app,” Pantucci said in an email.
Siasto is a unique project-management offering, but like a lot of services I see these days, extending to mobile is a challenge.
Competitors cited with fully featured mobile task-management capabilities include Clarizen, Basecamp, Mavenlink, Evernote and Google Drive. All were featured recently in a post on Digiizd, a site for helping people use technology. But there are a number of others, including Asana and Any.do. Larger providers are also bunched into the category, including Podio, now owned by Citrix and Zoho.
But in my survey of the market, I see only a few companies developing multiple apps for their respective services as Siasto is planning to do. That could give Siasto an edge if the trend to use single-purpose apps continues.