KOCHI:
Google’s just-concluded annual developer festival in the United States became special for the MNC’s India chapter when a Kerala-based app company featured in the keynote of the three-day event where participants from around the globe discussed latest products.
Riafy Technologies of Kochi was used in a new Google feature that helps reduce the size of its app ‘Cookbook recipes’ by 37 per cent. Google I/O 2019 featured Riafy in ‘Android App bundle’ at the May 7-9 meet at California. What’s more, Riafy completed a hat-trick: it also had two other showcases at Google I/O 2019. The 2013-founded company, which has created a suite of apps in the category of food, photography and fitness, is being incubated under the Kerala Start-up Mission (KSUM).
“This is a proud moment for not just Indian developers, more so for us in Kerala,” said Dr Saji Gopinath, CEO of KSUM, the nodal agency of the state government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities. “It was from eight lakh developers in the world that Google selected Riafy.”
The May 7-9 Google conference had featured five video stories and a chunk of the participants were American companies such as Netflix, Cash App and Robinhood. Google collaborated with 20-odd technicians from four countries to complete the shoot of the video stories in three days. Riafy got featured in two more sessions at the meet, thus completing a rare hat-trick, pointed out John Mathew, CEO of the start-up.
Riafy, which functions from the Integrated Startup Complex in Kalamassery, 20 km north of this city, has been working closely with Google for five years. It has partnered with Google for 14-plus EAPs (early access programs) where the MNC chooses the best developers across the world to work on new technologies. Google has done several case studies about Riafy and its products since 2015, making special mentions about the Kochi company at various conferences.
This year, Google introduced a new distribution method for apps that help reduce app size. In emerging markets like India, app size is crucial as most smartphones have limited storage capacity. Riafy worked with Google to reduce their app Cookbook’s size to 3.5MB. This helped increase visitor to install conversion rate on Google Play by 19 per cent. Google did a case study on Riafy’s implementation of App Bundle and its impact on users.
Riafy, which was co-founded by six friends, holds a patent in Artificial Intelligence and they use the same to create products. The team, comprising Joseph Babu, M Neeraj, Benny Xavier, K V Sreenath and Benoy Joseph besides CEO John Mathew, had created a platform during last year’s Kerala floods, enabling rescue teams to locate victims.
Google Developer Group celebrated this milestone achievement for the Indian developer community by meeting at the Kalamassery office on May 7 midnight. The 11th edition of Google I/O, held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in California’s Mountain View, gave developers from across the globe hands-on learning with Google experts.
