Conveneer Completes $4.5 Million Venture Round
Conveneer, an emerging leader in technology that enables content on mobile phones to be accessed like a Web site, today announced that it has secured $4.5 million in financing. The round was led by Industrifonden, a Swedish Foundation that invests primarily in growth companies, and included Broken Arrow Venture Capital, an early stage investment firm. The funding will be used to continue development of Conveneer's breakthrough Mikz (mix) platform, expand the management team, and significantly increase the company's sales and marketing in the United States to support its commercial launch later in the year.
As the features and functionality of mobile phones continue to explode, people are increasingly using these devices to store personal information such as photos, videos, music and their primary address books. Until now, accessing this information other than directly from the phone has been a challenge, requiring either physical cable synchronization or some kind of slow, periodic sync and upload solution. Conveneer changes all this - for the first time, consumers can get real-time access to phone content, anytime, and anywhere, using a standard Web browser or any Web application.
Conveneer's Mikz platform offers always-on, seamless connectivity to mobile phones over standard Internet protocols, using an intelligent overlay network. It works by assigning a URL to the mobile phones, enabling the phone to be accessed by typing the URL into any Web browser. Phone content can be seamlessly integrated with Internet-based data using standard, open APIs such as RSS and HTML and various Web services. Conveneer is currently working with mobile phone handset manufacturers, wireless carriers, and various application developers to launch its initial product suite.
Conveneer was founded in 2006 and is led by telecommunications and wireless industry veterans. Chief Executive Officer Christer Bjork was the founder of Teleca's mobile application suite Obigo, which has been shipped in over 300 million mobile phones worldwide. Chairman Örjan Johansson was director and general manager of Bluetooth Technology and Products for Ericsson.
"As more and more information is collected on people's mobile phones, the need to easily reach and share it, in a secure way, from any computing device becomes very important," said Tom Barton, general partner, Broken Arrow Venture Capital. "Conveneer's unique technology, for which it has filed several patents globally, satisfies this demand and makes it a must-have connectivity service for any mobile phone manufacturer or wireless carrier."
"It is crucial to our development that we attract major investors like Industrifonden and Broken Arrow Venture Capital," said Örjan Johansson, chief executive officer of Conveneer LLC, USA and chairman of the board. "Both organizations have deep experience managing and investing in innovative companies in telecommunications and the Internet. They will be instrumental in helping us to optimally drive a successful launch of Mikz later this year, and to develop the channel that will help ensure its adoption in the United States, Europe and beyond."
About Industrifonden
Industrifonden (www.industrifonden.se) offers capital, competence and a network of contacts to Swedish growth companies in a variety of industries. Industrifonden provides two types of capital: development capital for innovative tech startups and expansion capital for more mature companies that want to grow. The fund has assets of SEK 3.1 billion, of which SEK 1.6 billion is invested in around a hundred companies in technology, cleantech, life sciences and industry.
About Broken Arrow Venture Capital
Broken Arrow Venture Capital (www.brokenarrowcapital.com) provides early stage investment capital for talented entrepreneurs and their companies. Formed in 2007 in Los Altos, California, the firm invests the capital of its founding general partners, as well as close affiliates.
About Conveneer
Conveneer (www.conveneer.com) is an emerging leader in technology that enables content on mobile phones to be accessed like a Web site. Founded in 2006, the company is led by telecommunications and wireless industry veterans, has offices in Lund, Sweden, Palo Alto, California, Seoul and Tokyo and is working with some of the industry's key wireless software and device manufacturers. For further information please visit www.conveneer.com, call 1 650 919 4888 or email info@mikz.com.
