Mobile Bits and bobs

I've been a bit slack on the blogging front....busy times.So I thought I'd write another summary as the last one proved quite popular....

Michael Mace continues to deliver the goods over at Mobile Opportunity with a great article and some original analysis on mobile data and handset segmentation. Mr Mace argues the existence of three main handset segments (entertainment e.g. NGage, communication e.g Treo, and information e.g. PDA) and that what lies intersecting all three is the "Zone of Death". IMHO, the "zone of death" presents the biggest opportunity IF the device manufacturer can get the UI and marketing right, and I dont mean market it as a Swiss/army phone. Surely, the mass market needs a credible combination of all 3 capabilties? Communication, Entertainment and Information are converging right? (2ndLife, WOW, Habbo, Pica etc)

Paul Fisher of FirstCapital has written a great overview of VC activity in Europe during 2006. This was a great read as most of the coverage I see is about the US with little to no European specific coverage (except TornadoInsider). Looking at who raised what and from who is also interesting - I'm still amazed that one of my favourite mobile services Zyb only raise 0.6m - a very slick backup service that works on most mobiles - i'd happily pay for that.
And while were on the subject of VC, AlarmClock Euro has a good summary of mobile-related 3i trade sales and an interview with Snr Partner, Ian Lobley.

I noticed that Steve Ives (former founder of trigenix which was sold to Qualcomm in 04) has started a mobile search company called Taptu - nothing to see but one to watch.

And again, while we're on mobile search, i came across a refreshing approach to mobile content search from MogMo - take a look.

Hedge-funded Start-ups

I heard an amazing quest for funding story last week...about a UK company in the mobile space that raised an undisclosed (about $5m) Series A. They spent quite some time talking to VC's but opted for hedge-fund funding instead. The entrepreneurs behind the venture rationalised the funding intake arguing that they already had a strong network in place, it took very little time for the two parties to agree a structure and valuation, the funds were made available very quickly, there was no board-seat requirement, and because the fund was based in the US there was minimal day-to-day intrusion.

So I get home last night and open up my freshly delivered copy of Red Herring, and theres an article describing this new source of funding as an example of "financial convergence". It says that in the US, this is now quite common-place.
With the emerging trend of Micro-VC, hedge-funds and traditional VC, entrepreneurs are now witnessing a refreshing innovation wave across available finance sources, broadening choice and increasing the total amount of available funds.
P.S I would add that the hedge-fund route appears and makes sense only for the experienced and proven, so if you're starting out in this business, best probably to stick to the usual financial watering holes.

BVP Anti-portfolio

If you want an amusing read for a Friday afternoon, check out the Bessemer Venture Partners Anti-Portfolio, a page detailing all the deals they didn't do, including Ebay, Intel, Apple etc - Doh!

Netvibes seeded

Netvibes announced on Wednesday that it had received undisclosed seed funding from Index Ventures; Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape; PierreChappaz (founder of Kelkoo and Wikio (and an EIR at Index)); and Martin Varsavsky (founder of Jazztel, Ya.com and Fon).

Netvibes provides a very cool AJAX powered webapp that aggregates email, RSS, price watch, and weather and more from a variety of content providers including most of the usual 'web2.0' (i hate that phrase) suspects including del.icio.us, yahoo, gmail, flickr, blogmarks etc.

The boys and girls that created Four11 (early webail provider acquired by Yahoo), tried this type of concept a few years back with desktop.com(domain now owned by Mr Gross's Idealab) but lack of business model ended in closure. Netvibes must have montesation plans, but I expect it will get acquired before it gets to squeezing out dollars through ads, subs or other.

I use netvibes and I love it, although my only gripe is the name. I bought the deskweb.com domain back in 2000 with a view to doing something similar, so although I'm clearly heavily biased, I think this name would suit the product much better (go on....sensible offers.....;-)

SixApart, Splashblog and $12m

Earlier this week, SixApart announced the acquisition of Splashblog, (a mobile photo blogging service) which nicely compliments the rest of the product stable which includes Movable Type (the software) , TypePad (the hosted software) and Livejournal (the hosted blogging service and community). Yesterday, Sixapart said that it has raised $12 million in its third round of funding. The round was led by Focus Ventures, and also included participation from Intel Capital and previous investor August Capital. SixApart said that later this year, they will launch a new service, code named Comet, which, along with LiveJournal, promises to bring blogging and social networking into the mainstream. The press release claims that over 15 million people around the world use Six Apart’s blogging software and services and over 30 million visit its hosted sites every month.
I think this is all encouraging evidence to suggest that blogging is moving quickly up the product maturity curve....but its still got a bit of a way to go...

Obopay raises $10m

"Obopay, which will soon bring to market the first comprehensive mobile payment service in the U.S. that allows subscribers to get, send and spend money directly from their mobile phones, announced today it has received $10 million in funding in a Series A round. Obopay's intuitive and easy to use mobile application will work on any mobile phone and is the most convenient way for consumers to get, send and spend money instantly".

more here

Sharpcast raises $13.5m

Sharpcast, who recently demo'd at DEMO, have secured $13.5 million. Sigma Partners led the investment, with Series A investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Selby Venture Partners aslo participating. Sharpcast are developing a product designed to keep all the digital media on your mobile and PC in sync, with a backup accessible via the web. The product has been in development for over a year and the team are planning to launch a beta in the Spring. The sharpcast founders have a good track record, having developed the Blazer browser which they sold to Handspring back in 2000.

Skinkers raises £2m from NewMediaSpark

NewMediaSpark have ignited their investment engines again, and recently provided Skinkers with £2 million in funding to promote, expand and develop their desktop push-alert technology. The Skinkers product enables brands, media owners and corporates to immediately push multimedia information to their PC connected subscriber bases - cutting through the murk of other distrubtion channels such as web, email, RSS readers etc. (Sounds a bit like the original late 90's Pointcast revisited, refined and monetised??).
It will be interesting to see how Skinkers can translate their model and product to mobile. If I get the alerts on my PC during the day - presumably I'm up for getting them on my mobile when I'm out and about. MMS, Skinkers java reader app, good 'ol SMS??

Intercasting Corp raises $5.5m

Intercasting Corp, the company behind Rabble have raised $5.5 million in their first round of venture capital, led by Masthead Venture Partners and Avalon Ventures.

see previous post
press release here