LONDON, March 9, 2005 -
Celltick Technologies, the market leader in idle-screen services and interactive mobile broadcast, today announced the closing of its Series C financing with investments of $11 million, bringing the total funds raised to more than $20 million.
New investor Amadeus Capital Partners led this round of equity financing. Existing investor JVP (Jerusalem Venture Partners) also made a substantial new investment.
Celltick’s dynamic idle screen product is the only commercial, tested and deployed offering in the market and is already being enjoyed by millions of mobile phone users. Operators who are already using Celltick to promote their data services include Hutchison India, China Unicom, Orange Israel and MTN Networks in Sri Lanka. A string of new customers were added in 2004 and are expected to launch the service in the coming months.
Celltick is currently in the process of penetrating the European market and the capital raised in this round of funding will be used to expand its global sales and marketing activities and cement its first mover advantage in interactive mobile broadcasting.
Celltick’s dynamic idle screen product is a compelling solution to a problem shared by all mobile operators: the slow adoption rate of data services.
LiveScreen, Celltick’s main product, displays free, silent and non-intrusive messages on mobile handsets while they are in idle mode – just like a screen saver. These can be news headlines, sport reports, traffic updates, multi-user games and more.
When users see a message that interests them and want to know more, they simply click on the OK button. A menu opens and presents various options based on the data services offered by the operator. For example, a video news report could be offered, or an automatic link to a WAP site or web page, or an SMS message with more information. A second click launches the desired service.
LiveScreen uses Celltick’s interactive Broadcast technology enabling news and other content to be transmitted to millions of users instantly: a genuine mass-market offering.
Interest in Celltick is increasing as revenue from voice services reaches a plateau and operators look for new ways to increase the use of, and revenues derived from, data services. The global market for value added data services is predicted to grow to $48 billion by 2007, but this will only materialize when the mass market adopts data services. With Celltick’s platform, operators gain a cost-efficient tool to promote their data products.
Celltick’s commercial deployment has validated the system’s ability to drive data services adoption, with 25%-32% of LiveScreen enabled users becoming regular consumers of data services (compared with 2%-5% before deployment).
Commenting on the investment, Amadeus Director Richard Anton, who joins Celltick’s Board, says: “We believe that Celltick has created an end-to-end solution that will finally succeed in creating mass adoption of mobile value added data services. Celltick enjoys first mover advantage in interactive mobile broadcasting; its product is the only commercial, tested and deployed offering in the market, complete with content aggregation, delivery, network interface and client handling. Celltick’s team is impressive and we are delighted to be supporting the company in its next stage of growth.”
Adam Fisher, a General Partner in JVP and a board member of Celltick, said that the company had made impressive progress over the past year. “The demand for services is rapidly growing in the mobile industry, and Celltick is perfectly poised to capitalize with its interactive broadcast solution. We have high expectations for Celltick and full confidence in the strength of its management to continue leading the innovation of data services on a global scale.”
Yossi Wellingstein, Celltick's CEO, added: "We are delighted to have Amadeus on board. The combined experience and expertise of Amadeus and JVP will be instrumental in expanding Celltick's activities and strengthening our market impact. Celltick's technology has already delivered remarkable results to operators across the world, and with our investors’ support we will realize the potential of idle-screen services to become a key element in operators' mobile data strategies".
About Amadeus (www.amadeuscapital.com)
Amadeus invests venture capital in new technologies from offices in London and Cambridge, UK. Since its inception in 1997, Amadeus has backed over 45 companies in the UK and continental Europe, covering computer hardware and software, mobile and fixed communications technologies and medical technologies. Investments include Cambridge Silicon Radio, producing single chip bluetooth radios for short range connections and floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2004, Optos, a manufacturer of laser retinal scanners and number one in 2003’s Tech Track 100, Cambridge Broadband, developing technologies for wireless broadband networks in countries with poor infrastructure and number one in 2004’s Tech Track 100, Valista, an electronic payments company, Solexa, developing ultra high speed gene sequencing machines and AePONA, a developer of standards-based software gateways for the telecoms industry. Successful realisations from the Amadeus portfolio include Entropic, bought by Microsoft and Element-14, bought by Broadcom Corporation.
About JVP (www.jvpvc.com)
JVP is a leading Israeli venture capital firm focusing on investments in early stage companies in the enterprise software & networking, semiconductors & components and communications & mobile infrastructure sectors. With over $680 million under management, and offices in Jerusalem, New York, London, Tokyo and Beijing, JVP leverages its international presence, vast expertise and substantial capital base to build companies with the potential to shape and dominate global markets.
About Celltick Technologies (www.celltick.com)
Celltick is the world leader in idle-screen application and mobile interactive broadcast. Millions of users around the world already use the company’s products, which allow mobile operators to deliver value-added service to the mass market simply and intuitively.
Founded in 2000, Celltick is headquartered in London, has its R&D operations in Israel and offices in China, India and Russia.
