T-Mobile Venture Fund Makes Strategic Investment in deCarta
Written by deCarta
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Targets Accelerated Growth in Mobile Location-Based Services
San Jose, CA – June 10, 2008 – deCarta, the leading supplier of software and services for the Location-Based Services (LBS) industry, announced today that it has received a strategic investment of 6-million dollars (USD) from T-Mobile Venture Fund managed by T-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom AG. T-Mobile Venture Fund joins deCarta’s existing premiere investors Cardinal Venture Capital, Mobius Venture Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.
Location-based services are experiencing rapid adoption as consumers are using new applications that take advantage of location-enabled handsets. Location and mapping services have become a central ingredient in most mobile Internet platforms. deCarta’s geospatial software platform gives mobile LBS application developers and mobile operators the ability to quickly build and deploy applications that integrate a wide variety of map and data sources to provide complex local search, navigation, mapping, social networking and spatial search functions.
deCarta’s technology is ideal for the full continuum of mobile LBS solutions including off-board, server-based applications offered by mobile operators through to “connected navigation” – the ability to integrate personal navigation devices and smartphones through real-time two-way mobile connectivity to a variety of dynamic data sources and local search services.
In North America, location-based services have grown to account for 58 percent of the total downloaded application revenue according to recent market data from Nielsen Mobile, a division of The Nielsen Company. In this rapidly expanding market, deCarta has built a leading position with 90 percent of mobile LBS revenue at these carriers running on the company’s technology. deCarta’s customers have location based applications running on AT&T Wireless, Sprint, Verizon, ALLTEL, Bell Mobility, Telus, Boost and over eight mobile operators in Europe.
“We’re very proud that T-Mobile Venture Fund recognizes the strength, position and value that deCarta has as a vital, central player of the LBS market,” said J. Kim Fennell, President and CEO of deCarta. “Their strategic investment is a firm endorsement of the pivotal role deCarta plays in accelerating the delivery of location-oriented mobile applications and services to consumers around the world through our extensive network of LBS developers and partners”
Nils von Dellingshausen, Senior Investment Manager, T-Mobile Venture Fund, added, “We believe that deCarta’s enabling core technology and their unique central position in the mobile LBS value chain of application developers, content suppliers and service providers allows them to successfully leverage LBS market growth. deCarta creates a strong addition to our overall investment strategy and portfolio of companies.”
deCarta announced the investment by T-Mobile Venture Fund as part of a larger financing round.
Additional investors in this round will be announced at a later date.
About T-Mobile Venture Fund
The T-Mobile Venture Fund is managed by T-Venture, the venture capital entity of Deutsche Telekom. The activities of the T-Mobile Venture Fund provide T-Mobile with an innovative edge and strong commercial synergies. T-Mobile International is one of the world’s leading companies in mobile communications. As one of Deutsche Telekom's three strategic business units, T-Mobile concentrates on the most dynamic markets in Europe and the United States. For more information about T-Venture and the T-Mobile Venture Fund, please visit www.t-venture.com.
About deCarta
deCarta is the leading geospatial software platform that has enabled some of the industry’s most successful Location-Based Services (LBS) applications such as those deployed by Verizon, Sprint Nextel, AT&T, Telia, Multimap and Ask.com. The company's unique, patented technology is ideal for high-volume LBS applications for use in mobile, personal navigation, connected navigation, Internet and enterprise applications where scalability, speed and reliability are vital. Its Drill Down Server geospatial software platform, Rich Map Engine, Hosted Web Service and Navigation SDK for are preferred by application developers and service providers who also want the flexibility to customize map styles, utilize unique routing capabilities and self-brand. Some of deCarta’s customers and technology partners have included AND, Appello, Ask.com, ATX, AutoTrader.com, Google, Hotels.com, Local Matters, Maps.com, Motorola, Multimap, NAVTEQ, Networks In Motion, Rand McNally, Tele Atlas, TeleNav, TopTable.com Yahoo! and Zillow. deCarta is privately held and headquartered in San Jose, California with international offices in the UK and China. http://www.decarta.com.
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