By Tova Cohen
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Zemingo, Israel's biggest mobile applications developer, is on the hunt for more acquisitions to help it to double annual sales.
The company, which bought New York design studio Yellowtale for $2.5 million in late 2014, is aiming to strengthening its position in the burgeoning market for customized apps to help businesses operate more efficiently.
One such Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad app for Sweden's Verisure Securitas Direct was designed to help sales staff to gather leads, analyze customers' needs and prepare price quotes. It also enables management to track sales staff in real time.
British research firm VisionMobile says businesses and professional users spent more than $28 billion on enterprise apps in 2013 and this is expected to jump to $58 billion by 2016. The bulk of the revenue is from customized apps.
Zemingo Chairman Zvi Frank sold his web-conferencing company Interwise to AT&T (NYSE:T) for $130 million in 2007. At Zemingo he employs 80 workers and is seeking to hire 50 more this year.
The company recently bought 9Design, changing its name to Yellowtale, to service U.S. customers and is expanding operations of its subsidiary PandaPepper for mobile marketing.
"We are very profitable and are doubling our sales every year," Chief Executive Tsiki Naftaly told Reuters, adding that sales were in the tens of millions of dollars.
Zemingo plans to boost activity in the United States, mainly through acquisitions. Naftaly is targeting companies in wearable computing and the so-called internet of things as well as development studios with a strong client base to penetrate new markets.
The Israeli business competes with U.S. rivals Fueled and MentorMate as well as London-based Golden Gekko, which was bought by Digital Management Inc in 2013.
The company has four spin-offs in the gaming and telecoms industry and is seeking to raise money for three more, including BoatBook, a social network that will enable boat owners to know where others are sailing or dropping anchor.