The Mobile Start-Up Ecosystem - Rudy De Waele

Mobile Web 2.0 - London 19/9/07

Rudy De Waele

The Mobile 2.0 Start-Up Ecosystem


Rudy De Waele

“3” launches flat-rate mobile(november 06)


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How are Mobile 2.0propositions different?


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The all-IP Environment(network convergence)

• GSM• UMTS/3G• Wi-Fi/Wimax• GPS• DVB-H• Bluetooth• Fixed Networks


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Convergent Devices


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• SMS• Voice• VoIP• Messaging• Presence• RSS to SMS• Click to Call• Mobile Search• Maps• Bluetooth download zones• Wi-Fi Hotspot Entertainment• Media Sharing• Location-Based Services

Application mash-ups


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Markus Angermeier


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What Mobile Web 2.0 characteristicsare start-ups focusing on?

• Harnessing Collective Intelligence

• Ubiquitous Access - operator independant

• Context relevant - desktop is not a mobile screen

• Create Compelling User Experiences

• Synchronisation between Web & Mobile

• Social Interaction - profile & personal media exchange,chat & messaging, status updates


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• Building Solid User Base - Think global, act viral

• Location - Find places as well as people!

• Address Book Integration

• Constraints - latency - battery life - bandwith limitation

• Privacy and security !

• Perpetual Beta?

What Mobile Web 2.0 characteristicsare start-ups focusing on?


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Web 2.0 going mobile?Not really Mobile 2.0 just yet?


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Mobile 2.0 Categories / Players


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Mobile 2.0 Categories / Players

• Audio (Nokia Podcasting, Visual Radio, Rhapsody, iTunes)• Development Platforms (mFoundry, Funambol)• Entreprise (SoonR)• Imaging (scanR, Shozu, Daem Interactive)• Location-Based (buddyping, loopt, Plazes, Socialight, dodgeball)• Media Sharing (Shozu, Mosh, MoJungle, PixPulse, PixSense, SharpCast)• Microblogging (Jaiku, Twitter, Pownce, Frazr, Fanfou, Zuosa, Blabto)• Mobilize (BluePulse, Plusmo)• Point Of Sales Mobile Channels (Futurlink)• QR-codes (BeeTagg, Kaywa, ShotCode)• Shopping (Frucall, Text2Store)• Social Media (Facebook, MySpace, MyStrands, Mobiluck, Rabble)• Transactions (Mobo, MyNuMo)• Video (YouTube, ViiF, Oplayo, vpod.tv, JuiceCaster, ComVu)• Voice (Fring, Jaja, Gizmo, Grand Central, TalkPlus, Trufone)• Widgets (Bling, Widsets, Mojax, Webwag)


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where do we see new start-ups?


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Image by Paul Watson


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where do we see new start-ups?

innovation is happening everywhere


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Evaluating new propositions:

who is investing in what?recent deals - some examples


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• Done deals - sorry, too late guys!

• Venture Capital - Series B

• Venture Capital - Series A

• Seed Capital


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who is investing in what?Google Acquires GrandCentral (July 07)

1 Phonenumber - 1 Mailbox - Many Features

GrandCentral, founded in 2005 is an innovative service that lets usersintegrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into oneaccount, which can be accessed from the web.

The company, raised less than $6 million in capital from Minor Ventures (theexact amount has never been disclosed), beta launched September 2006.Earlier this year mainstream press and blogger attention heated up.

GrandCentral was recently pitching a second round of financing to SiliconValley venture capitalists, but broke off discussions abruptly as the Googletalks heated up.

The deal is rumored to be somewhere in the range of $50 million


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who is investing in what?Nokia Acquires Twango (July 07)

Social Media Sharing Platform

Twango, a privately-owned company founded by former Microsoft veterans,provides a comprehensive media sharing solution for organizing and sharingphotos, videos and other personal media.

Today's digital cameras and camera phones not only take great still photos,they also record video and audio. One study estimates that within four years,228 billion images (Yes, that's with a "b") will be captured on camera phonesalone.

The deal was undisclosed, estimated to be around $96.8 million by the WSJ.


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Mobile Entreprise, aiming at the Prosumer market

SoonR, founded in 2005, completed a $6 million Series A round of funding inSeptember 2006. The investment was led by Clearstone Venture Partners,with participation by IntelCapital and private investors.

SoonR lets mobile users tap into the power of their computers from anyInternet-connected mobile handset, anywhere in the world.

SoonR Simple Value Proposition that can identify and build a revenue streamupon in partnership with Operators. SoonR’s value proposition is activestorage with advanced rendering capabilities on a mobile phone that allowsyou remote access, view, search, share, print and fax.

who is investing in what?SoonR Raises $6 Million (September 06)


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who is investing in what?BluePulse Raises $6 Million (April 07)

Social Media Platform

In December 2006, Bluepulse launched its game-changing social networkingapplication.

Bluepulse is built on an open platform that gives its global users multiplemeans of communication, content sharing, widgets, and so much more - allunder one roof.

Bluepulse has an advertising-based revenue model.

Bluepulse closed its Series A round with VantagePoint Venture Partners inApril 2007.


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who is investing in what?MyStrands Gets $25million (June 07)

Social Recommendation Platform

Founded in 2003, social recommendation specialist MyStrands has closed a Series Bround of $25million led by Antonio Asensio, CEO of Grupo Zeta, Spain’s third largestmedia group, along with existing investors Debaeque and Sequel backing this round aswell. This brings the total amount of funding for MyStrands to $31 million.

Personalization Platform:Real-time recommendations (user enjoys "this item", we suggest "this other item":advertising, music, video...)• Content organization (intelligent playlist builder, intelligent synchronization betweendevices)• Content agnostic; cross-platform (your profile regardless of what you use to connect)

MyStrands Social PlayerPersonalized recommendations, build your music profileSee what your friends are listening to - Increases user engagement of the devic

Recently the company launched their MyStrands.TV platform.


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The World’s First Multimedia Ringtone Community

Personalization 2.0


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Recent launchesVringo - $12 M in Series B Funding (July 07)

Video Sharing Community

Vringo recently launched a video sharing community which allows you toshare video ringtones (or Vringos) with your buddies each time you call them.

Vringo clips can contain either licensed content from the best of movies, TVand music, or user generated clips that are created on your own mobilephone.

Series B round of venture capital funding, receiving $12 million in a round ledby Warburg Pincus, the global private equity firm.


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Combined & searchable list

Call / Chat / Invite Chat Invite a friend

Internet communication… on mobile

Call History

mVoIP - Real freedom of choice


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Fring Raises $12 Million Series B(August 07)

mVoIP (mobile VoIP)

fring is an end-to-end mobile VoIP service enabling free calls, chat & real-timepresence over the mobile handset Internet connection.Product developmentover the past two years, introduced into the market in Q1 2007

Israeli-based VOIP start-up Fring has closed an estimated $12 million secondround, led by US VC fund North Bridge Venture Partners. VenFin and previousinvestors Pitango, Veritas and Yossi Vardi also participated. If the investmentestimate is accurate, it would be one of the larger rounds for a VOIP company.

Fring is a mobile application for Windows and Symbian phones that uses VOIPto make cheap/free mobile calls and instant message. Unlike Jajah, but likeTruphone, Fring sends calls and chats over Wi-Fi internet access or your 3G orGPRS Internet data plan. Like Skype, users are charged a nominal fee to callstandard phone lines. However, calls made to other internet phones are free.


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Evaluating new propositions:

recent launches, future deals?


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who is investing in what?Dopplr: early-stage financing (09/07)

Online Service for Frequent Travellers

Dopplr is an online (and probably soon) a mobile service for frequenttravellers. Dopplr lets you share your future travel plans with a group oftrusted fellow travellers whom you have chosen.

Dopplr secured early-stage financing.The investors are Martin Varsavsky,Joichi Ito, Reid Hoffman and The Accelerator Group led by Saul Klein. Thisinternational team—frequent travellers who themselves use Dopplr—hasseparately made previous investments in many successful Internetcompanies, including Last.fm, Joost, FON, LinkedIn, Flickr, Technorati, Wikia,Xing, Stardoll, Six Apart and Netvibes.

Dopplr’s founders are: Lisa Sounio, chief executive officer; Matt Biddulph,chief technology officer; Matt Jones, design director; and Dan Gillmor,founding traveller. Marko Ahtisaari is a founding investor.


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Main features• Contact people who are in the same

place (up to 100 meters)• No need to know their phone number!• Send unlimited messages for FREE• Send text, pictures, ringing tones, MP3,

business cards…

Business modelShareware• 3-days trial period• Basic features available for free

Premium license sold to end-users• Online sales by credit card and Paypal: 15€/year• 1-click payment by Premium SMS in 16 countries:

Bluetooth Messaging Application


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Recent launchesFuturlink - POS Mobile Interaction

• FUTURLINK provides technology that enables to create new retailingcommunication paradigms and content distribution systems on the point ofsales

• The system is based on the proximity of mobile phones and it is using shortrange wireless technologies embedded in mobile phones such asBluetooth, NFC and Wi-Fi

• Access points may interact with consumer mobile phones in the point ofsales using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, as well as include accessories such asspeakers, barcode readers, presence sensor, coupons printers, etc.

• Non-intrusive Bluetooth or Wi-Fi marketing campaigns are performed in away that acceptation by the end-user is required. It is free for the end-users inthe PoS, since they are using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi technology


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• Taptu launches October

• Only gives you pure results that canalways be consumed easily on your mobile

• Yet crawls and indexes a very long tail ofcontent,millions and millions of Web items

• e.g Taptu song results are mobile-playableon 100+ handsets, over 10m songsindexed


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2 Mobile phone screen simulation

open

1 “Send to mobile”in web widget’s Edit Menu

(displayed when mouse over)

3 Done ! Read & Type

Twitts on mobile

WebWag just anounced Series A


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Thank you!

Follow me:twitter.com/mtrends

rudydw.jaiku.com


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MobileMonday Barcelona


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Mobile 2.0 ConferenceSan Francisco - October 15, 2007


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Contact:

[email protected]

mobile: +34 678 962 637


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Creative Common License:

Please note: this presentation is licensed under cc 2.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike2.5 Generic License. If you have questions about republishing feel free to contact me.

More info at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

Images used in this work:

World Start-Up Map by Markus Angermeier (slide 8)http://www.nerdwideweb.com/

World Start-Up Map by Paul Watson (slide 16)http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulwatson/212446246/