Appcelerator raises $9M to build app for PayPal merchants

Appcelerator, which makes software that translates web-developed applications into Objective-C and other languages used in mobile operating systems, announced today that it has raised $9 million in its second round of funding from eBay and Sierra Ventures.

Software translation services have real potential to expand because of the growing number of mobile operating systems. Instead of having to rewrite an application to fit multiple operating systems, companies like Appcelerator give developers a way to write the application in a single language and distribute it to all operating systems at once. That cuts the application development process down to about 4 to 6 weeks, from upwards of 6 months, according to Appcelerator VP of marketing Scott Schwarzhoff.

Appcelerator plans to use the funding to help develop its Titanium+Commerce application, which will provide PayPal’s 8 million partnered merchants with a ready-to-use template application. PayPal merchants can slap their logo on the application and distribute it to their customers immediately. The PayPal toolkit will include application add-ons like coupon support, bar code scanning, rewards programs and mobile payments. That will be available in the first half of 2011.

Merchants partnered with PayPal that have some programming experience can start writing custom applications with the PayPal toolkit today. On top of the toolkit, Appcelerator will provide PayPal merchants with an analytics suite that maps out where and when mobile payments occurred.

The Mountain View, Calif.- based company was founded in 2007 and has since raised $15.2 million in funding. Some 78,000 developers have used Appcelerator to develop about 5,500 mobile applications to date. Appcelerator has 25 employees, and its clients include NBC, MTV, eBay and Cisco.