Snap debuted its developer platform two years ago, and though it has amassed several hundred integrations inside third-party apps, the company is still looking to scale deeper relationships with the developers on Snap Kit.
Today, the social media company announced Yellow Collabs. The remote 13-week program allows companies to dive deeper into integrating their apps with Snap Kit with a number of instruction paths based on their interests in specific elements of the platform. Companies can choose to work with Snap around integrating with their apps with the entire Snap Kit platform, or dive deeper into Snap Minis, Dynamic Lenses, Scan or Snap ML feature verticals.
The company opened up applications for the new program today, which kicks off September 21 and runs through December 18 of this year.
Snap’s Yellow division had previously only been home to its small startup accelerator that invests in early-stage companies. The division, headed up by Mike Su and Alexandra Levitt, has debuted three batches of startups thus far and is currently readying timelines for their fourth batch.
While the Yellow accelerator hasn’t mandated that admitted founders integrate Snap Kit into their platforms, getting onsite assistance in doing so has been a sell for some startups in the program. Levitt tells TechCrunch that the accelerator was having to turn away applications from growth-stage startups, larger companies and nonprofits who had interesting pitches for Snap integrations but weren’t ideal fits for the accelerator format. Levitt hopes this new program can help ambitious developers get assistance in getting the most out of the platform, while “offering a closer relationship with the Snap team.”
“We hope this program can help bring in applications from companies that might not have been able to execute in a self-service manner,” Levitt says.
While program sits inside Yellow, Snap won’t be making any investments or receiving equity in the companies. Collabs aligns on the education element of the startup accelerator even it the goals are a bit different. It’s an interesting marriage, and also a sign of Snap getting more serious about driving deeper partnerships and forming earlier bonds with the companies on its developer platform.
