While working on his doctorate in computer science at the University of Wisconsin, Dale Willis discovered the solutions he needed for his research were substandard. Inspired to help other developers with the problems he encountered, Willis co-founded Exis, a secure code-writing application, with Mickey Barboi.

Exis helps create a faster production process by allowing individual developers to use four common software components–cloud hosting, built-in authentication, data storage and unified communication between apps and their components–in a single platform.

Dedicated to the development of Exis, Willis left the PhD program and Barboi left his master’s program at UW-Madison to work on the startup full time. Willis serves as the CEO, and Barboi is the CTO.

Since Exis’ launch in August 2015, nearly 200 developers are using the beta version to create their apps. Within the next month, the Exis team will finish its beta testing phase and then set up the payment system. The company is targeting iOS and Ionic developers but plans to expand to Android developers in the near future.

“The beta has been incredibly successful,” Willis said. “We have heard an incredible amount of positive feedback from developers all over the world.”

In February, Exis was accepted into gener8tor‘s 12-week accelerator program. Exis’ goal is to secure investment funding by the second quarter of this year.

In the meantime, the Exis team is devoting its time and energy to continue making the coding process easier for developers. Willis is excited for Exis to be used in a variety of settings, including education, individual app development and in small- to mid-sized businesses.

“We provide a one-stop shop to developers based on next-generation technology,” Willis said. “This allows developers to spend less time learning how to use libraries to implement cool features and more time actually doing what they love to do–write code.”