Today we are thrilled to announce that we just closed our first round of financing with some of the best and most successful web entrepreneurs in Europe. 

Namely we are proud to receive support from Marc Simoncini (meetic CEO), Xavier Niel (Iliad/Free CEO), Jacques-Antoine Granjon (Vente-Privee CEO), Jean-David Blanc (founded Allocine.com sold to Vivendi - the Europe IMDB and recently invested in Square). A-level investors.

AppsFire is a French company with split operations between France and Israel but our reach is worldwide. Our investors built very successful businesses from France with international reach. This should be inspiring to us.

When we first started AppsFire, we had no idea that this simple idea would become a full-time operation with proper funding. Everything we did so far was done with very little time and resources. Starting today, things are going to change and this is rather a good news for us but mainly for you our readers and users.

Since we launched AppsFire, we generated more than 10 million app recommendations and download intents. Those recommendations converted into hundreds of thousands of clicks and the pace is accelerating lately at a very significant speed. We also launched an app built in 10 days that reach the App store top rankings for which a new version is coming very soon.

We are aware that AppsFire was a great experiment so far, meaning it was far from perfect. We are now equipped with the means to bring you the most innovative platform for mobile apps discovery; we are hiring today to that effect! 

What it means specifically is that nearly everything that you are seeing today is going to change. A new iPhone app will come soon, new discovery mechanisms, breakthrough features and tools, extending Appsfire to new OSes and not just the iPhone/iPad. Oh and did you notice our refreshed website?  (thanks to Nicolas Dengler for the graphical design)

We firmly believe that mobile apps is one of  the next new big things (do we need to convince you?) and that they (whether desktop or web based) will be the format of choice for consuming the internet and content on the go. We also believe that the app discovery issue, a critical one, has not yet been cracked. As users, we remain frustrated despite the large range of attempted solutions out there, and despite Apple's efforts that are clearly going in the right direction. We are frustrated even with our own solution!  

So in short, the challenge is exciting. In the meantime we want to thank you all, our users, for your support and love. We would not have been where were are today without you.

Keep watching this space for upcoming updates. And keep spreading the love for us! Thanks. Ouriel & Yann.

update: TechCrunch has a post on the funding