Stage 1 Ventures

INgrooves Partners With Myxer for Mobile Music

newsroom — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:42:51 +0000

Myxer, a stage 1 ventures portfolio company, announced today an agreement with INgrooves that provides Myxer’s userbase access to several hundred thousand ringtones from the world’s leading independent artists.

"With over 15 million users, more than 22 million mobile downloads a month, and a catalog of over 1.5 million mobile ringtones, wallpapers, videos, and games, Myxer is the largest and fastest growing site for mobile content in the U.S. today," said Myk Willis, CEO of Myxer. "With our new INgrooves distribution partnership we’re able to add top favorites to our catalog and provide our mobile community with incredible choice in personalized content."

Additional information can be found at this press release.

Forbes: Cookies For Your Cellphone

newsroom — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:00:27 +0000

Ringleader, a stage 1 ventures portfolio company, recently launched "media stamp" - an advanced tracking cookie for mobile devices. Forbes covered this promising technology in a recent issue:

Soon your phone might share a lot of information about you with advertisers. And although that might make you nervous, some advertisers hope it will also unleash a flood of more targeted, and thus more useful, ads. This week, Ringleader Digital, a New York-based mobile ad network is launching an experimental version of what it calls a "media stamp" –a technology it hopes will become as widespread as "cookies" on the Web.

The complete article can be found here.

OnePIN: the most far-reaching mobile social networking technology maker that you’ve never heard of.

newsroom — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 03:12:22 +0000

OnePIN Inc, a stage 1 ventures portfolio company, has deployed its mobile contact sharing and social networking platform with more than 65 service operators and 16 million users.

Focusing on the GSM platform, OnePINs CallerXchange is not a downloadable application, but an element of a phones operating system, installed directly on the SIM card. The benefit of this non traditional approach: OnePIN is able to approach sales through SIM card manufacturers, rather than direct to consumers, carriers or even handset manufacturers.

Additional details can be found in a recent MassTech article.

Skyhook expands geolocation service offering: supports GPS-enabled devices

newsroom — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:07:43 +0000

Skyhook announced that it is incorporating GPS support into its geolocation service to get an even more accurate fix for location-based services. Until lately, Skyhook’s geolocation service, used on Apples iPhone and other mobile devices, has used Wi-Fi hot spots to obtain a fix. But for all of the benefits of Wi-Fi, it doesn’t work in rural areas where hot spots are few and far between. Now Skyhook has integrated GPS support into its technology, which will allow Skyhook to cover more ground with its geolocation service.

"Our technology works great in populated areas," said Ted Morgan, co-founder and CEO of Skyhook. "But on the open road it’s more difficult. Now with GPS integrated, iPhone users, for example, can get turn-by-turn navigation anywhere they go."

Details can be found in the press release at Skyhook Wireless.

Additional coverage can be viewed on the cnet site.

Go2Media Launches Animated Banner Support

newsroom — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:30:11 +0000

go2 Media, a stage 1 ventures portfolio company, is rolling out animated banner units across its network of mobile content sites. The banners will appear on the top of WAP pages and feature a series of images that display on a 10-15 second loop. This approach ensures that brand advertiser campaigns will be compatible with all networks and devices within the go2 network.

"Brands are looking for what they can do to get that image out there, and if we can do things to help enhance their image and proposition to consumers, these are the types of things that will help mobile marketing grow overall." said Tim Solt, senior vice president of sales at go2.

To date, text-based ads have accounted for the bulk of mobile advertising. But as more consumers begin accessing the Web and content via mobile devices, marketers and publishers alike are looking for new ways to grab the attention of cell phone subscribers.

Details can be found in the press release at go2.

Additional coverage can be viewed on the mediapost site

Myxer wins Key Market Enabler award from Frost & Sullivan

newsroom — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:07:34 +0000

Myxer, a stage 1 ventures portfolio company, received the 2008 North American Award for Key Market Enabler in U.S. Advertising Markets from Frost & Sullivan. Myxer was chosen for this year’s Award based on the company’s creative solution to key industry challenges, as well as its benefit to the mobile value chain and role in the market. From the Frost & Sullivan site:

"Myxer has emerged as one of the largest providers of ad-supported mobile content in the United States, and plays a key role in enabling ad-supported mobile content services. The company illustrates how advertising-supported mobile services can be delivered without compromising the user experience and has achieved impressive results within a short two-year period (8M subscribers, 18M downloads per month)."

Details can be found in the press release at Frost & Sullivan.

Additional coverage can be found in the Myxer press release.

Mophap secures A round financing; relaunches as Ringleader Digital

newsroom — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:56:15 +0000

Ringleader Digital (formerly known as MoPhap), the operator of a mobile advertising network, has has raised $6 million in its first round of venture capital financing, led by marketing services firm W2 Group. From the Ringleader site:

"Ringleader is the first mobile advertising network that finally fufills the promise and potential of the mobile web," said Larry Weber, CEO of W2 Group. "Right now, other mobile advertising networks are complicated, segmented and filled with guesswork and administrative headaches. Ringleader takes online advertising and puts it on mobile devices. It doesn’t get less complicated than that."

Details can be found in the press release at Ringleader Digital.

Additional coverage can be viewed on the mediapost site

USATODAY: Jobs, iPhone have Skyhook pointed in the right direction

newsroom — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:50:16 +0000

Skyhook Wireless, a stage 1 ventures portfolio company, has taken center stage with the latest Apple innovation - the iPhone. Skyhooks’ Wi-Fi positioning system is used to support Apples latest location position feature in Maps running on iPhone and iTouch devices. USATODAY covered this breakthrough technology in this article, and tested out a skyhook enabled iPhone with positive results.

The complete article can be read here.

go2 merges with 80108 media

newsroom — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:04:31 +0000

Go2, a stage 1 ventures portfolio company, and 80108 Media, a pioneer in original mobile content, has announced plans to merge, forming go2 Media. Together, go2 Media will continue to focus on meeting the growing user demand for more localized, personalized mobile content.

Details of the merger can be found on the go2 website.

Myxer Raises $6.5 million, launches ‘mobilized by Myxer’ at DEMOfall ‘07

newsroom — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:08:05 +0000

Myxer, a stage 1 ventures portfolio company, has secured $6.5 million of A round financing. Myxer will use the proceeds of the investment to further fuel its recent traffic explosion, scale and enhance its mobile content delivery platform and expand its world-class technical team.

Additionally, Myxer announces its latest offering - "Mobilized by Myxer™", ant the DEMOfall ‘07 conference. Mobilized by Myxer enables content owners to create and deliver mobile content with drag and drop simplicity right from their existing website. The product takes an ordeal that used to take weeks and thousands of dollars and turns it into a simple process that can be done in minutes and at no cost. In addition to sending individual items to a mobile phone, Mobilized by Myxer automatically creates a custom mobile download storefront for the content owner.

More information about Myxer can be found at the Myxer news website