Easy-to-Use Open-Source Mobile E-Mail Works in 1.5 Billion Phones
Written by Nexit Ventures
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
Nexit Ventures Leads $12.5m Investment Round for Funambol - Easy-to-Use Open-Source Mobile E-Mail Works in 1.5 Billion Phones
Helsinki, Finland – June 17, 2008 – Nexit Ventures, a mobile venture capital firm focused on wireless technologies and services, today announced an investment round of $12.5 million for US-based Funambol, the world's leading provider of open source mobile 2.0 messaging. The funding will support Funambol's market share and company growth, particularly in Europe and Asia, in addition to accelerating its product development.
The B funding round was led by Nexit Ventures, with investments from Castile Ventures as well as previous Funambol investors Walden International and HIG Ventures. To date, the company has raised $25 million in venture capital. Nexit Ventures' General Partner Michel Wendell will join Funambol's board.
"Mobile e-mail is poised for explosive growth, as adoption moves from enterprises to the consumer market. Industry research estimates the number of mobile phone users at 3.3 billion, and the number of e-mail accounts at approximately 2 billion. However, only an estimated less than two percent of e-mail users use mail on their mobile phones, so the potential in this area is huge," said Michel Wendell, General Partner, Nexit Venturess.
Funambol's open source Push Mail and Personal Information Management solutions enable mobile operators and service providers to easily offer push email, contacts and calendars for the mass market. Funambol supports the widest variety of mobile handsets, automates over-the-air provisioning and is highly affordable for consumers. Push Mail technology allows e-mail to be delivered to mobile devices without the application needing to contact the server.
"Until now, mobile e-mail required high-end devices, costly service and complex setup. Funambol's solution is compatible with 1.5 billion mobile phones consisting of hundreds of device models from all major manufacturers," said Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO, Funambol.
Funambol's solution supports mobile devices by Apple, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and numerous smaller manufacturers. Several mobile operators worldwide have deployed the commercial version of the software, while AOL uses Funambol's synchronization technology in its e-mail service. Funambol's mobile advertising partners include Amobee Media Systems and Smaato.
Nexit Ventures invests in mobile and wireless high-growth companies, primarily in the Nordic countries and the US. In 2006 and 2007, Nexit realized successful exits of its portfolio companies Bitfone, Hybrid, Mobile365 and Hantro to HP, NVIDIA, Sybase and On2, respectively. Nexit's other portfolio companies include Axel Technologies, Conformiq, Ecrio, Ekahau and Futuremark.
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