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27Mar

Angry Birds’ Maker Rovio Ups Its Game, Buys Futuremark’s Games Studio

Rovio has made a killing out of its Angry Birds franchise, and today it announced a deal that points to how the mobile games maker is hard at work developing what could well be the follow up to that: today it announced that it has bought Futuremark Games Studio, the gaming arm of software developer Futuremark.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The team behind Futuremark Games Studio, also based in Finland like Rovio, are all coming over in the deal. Games that the developer has made include Unstoppable Gorg and Hungribles, as well as Shattered Horizon — which, like Angry Birds Space, plays with the zero gravity concept.

The deal signifies a couple of things. First, Rovio is making some definitive moves to enhance its developer expertise in cutting-edge mobile games. Just as Angry Birds Space, released last week, is now using a new physics engine for the gameplay, so, too, does this point to the company looking for the latest innovations.

“They are an incredibly talented and experienced team, and we are thrilled to have them on board,” said Mikael Hed, Rovio Entertainment’s CEO said in a release. “Rovio’s success is founded on the excellence of our team, and Futuremark Games Studio is going to be a superb addition.”

Second, it shows that there is some consolidation underway in mobile gaming at the moment, with smaller studios getting picked up by bigger players. That’s something that Bart Decrem, VP of mobile games at Disney, also talked about with TechCrunch the other week. (Decrem implied that Disney was looking for specific hires rather than acquiring studios — although with this move from Rovio, who knows what might happen next.)

This is Rovio’s second acquisition in the last year. The company also bought Kombo Animation Studio last summer for an undisclosed amount.

Futuremark’s CEO Jukka Makinen says that the remaining company will continue to focus on benchmarking software, used by the gaming industry to test and improve the performance of their games.

“Future will now focus on supporting gamers and industry with 3DMark,” he said in a statement. The company is planning to release a new version of the software later this year that will let developers test across different platforms and form factors.

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26Mar

Mobile Banking Consolidation: Monitise Buys Clairmail For $173 Million

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One more sign of the mobile money space continuing to grow up: some significant consolidation underway. Today, the UK-based mobile banking specialists Monitise announced that it is buying Clairmail, a U.S.-based competitor, for $173 million, as part of its global expansion.

The combined group says it will serve 13 million customers world-wide processing some $10 billion of payments weekly, and will give Monitise a much bigger and direct presence in the North American market: one-third of the top 50 U.S. financial institutions are now clients of the group.

Monitise and Clairmail both focus on an “infrastructure” play around mobile banking and mobile payments. Their main business is in providing the backend to let banks and other financial institutions offer mobile banking, payment and shopping services to its customers.

Alastair Lukies, Monitise Group CEO, tells me that Monitise is not actively looking for further acquisitions but that, “if opportunities come along, we will take them seriously.”

As mobile banking and mobile money services continue to mature (and see many new entrants enter the game, from PayPal to Square and so many more), it’s inevitable to see consolidation in the space to further the global reach of such services.

But Lukies says he believes that there is much more room for smaller companies and innovation at the “edges” of mobile payments systems — that is, those that touch consumers — than there is among the infrastructure players like Monitise, which are likely to continue scaling up.

He says that for now Monitise is not interested in acquiring those smaller companies: “We are not into the piloting and the bleeding edge stuff,” he says.

The link-up between Clairmail and Monitise will not only give the two companies a bigger geographical reach, but will also give customers of the companies access to providing banking services on a much wider international scale.

“This deal is transformational for our customers, our team, our shareholders and our company. It is a compelling combination and great news for all those wanting to offer bank-grade mobile money services to billions of consumers, not only in the US but worldwide,” commented Alastair Lukies, Monitise Group CEO, in a statement.

That is also furthered by Monitise’s existing strategic relationships with payments giants Visa Inc. and FIS. (Visa, of course, has been making other big investments into how it can best leverage the development of mobile money services, from partnerships with operators to acquisitions, such as its purchase of Fundamo last year.)

Pete Daffern, the CEO of Clairmail, will continue on as the head of Clairmail within the combined company and will also join the group executive board.

Full statement below:

Clairmail to be Acquired by Monitise

Acquisition Unites Mobile Money Leaders to Power a New Generation of Global Financial Institutions and Consumers Through a Comprehensive Set of Mobile Banking, Payment and Commerce Solutions

SAN RAFAEL, CA–(Marketwire – Mar 26, 2012) – Clairmail, Inc., a leading North American mobile banking and payments provider, today announced that it has entered into a definitive acquisition agreement with Monitise plc (LSE: MONI.L), the technology and services company delivering mobile money networks worldwide. Monitise will acquire Clairmail for $173 million, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals.

Through the acquisition, Monitise will further enhance its position as the global leader in the fast expanding market for mobile money, spanning banking, payments and commerce.

The combined entity will encompass 13 million registered consumers across four continents. Clairmail and Monitise process billions of transactions a year and more than $10 billion of payments and transfers on a current weekly annualized basis.

On completion of the acquisition, the combined businesses will provide mobile money services to the widest possible range of financial institutions in the US. A third of the top 50 North American financial institutions (including 8 of the top 13) have chosen the companies’ services alongside hundreds of smaller and medium sized financial institutions customers.

“Clairmail is an undisputed mobile banking leader with a strong roster of financial institutions of all sizes, having been chosen by more than a third of the top 50 North American banks to provide innovative mobile solutions to their customers,” said Alastair Lukies, Monitise Group CEO. “Clairmail shares Monitise’s customer-centric approach and dedication to bringing the best possible mobile experience and technology through constant innovation and a focus on delivering bank-grade mobile services to their customers. This deal is transformational for our customers, our team, our shareholders and our company. It is a compelling combination and great news for all those wanting to offer bank-grade mobile money services to billions of consumers, not only in the US but worldwide.”

The acquisition further enhances Monitise’s mobile money reach into North America through Clairmail’s direct sales channel and deep relationships with leading financial institutions. For Clairmail, the acquisition brings the potential to expand the company’s award-winning mobile banking technology to new customers across new markets. The acquisition provides a step change in growth potential for Monitise through direct sales in the US driven by Clairmail’s mobile banking team and expertise. This, combined with Monitise’s existing and unmatched strategic partnerships with Visa Inc. and FIS, provides the enlarged group with a leading position in the US and three commanding routes to market.

New and current customers of both companies will benefit from the balanced deployment models of on-premise and hosted mobile banking, payments and commerce products, providing a variety of options in the deployment and customization process. The suite of Clairmail products will be maintained and enhanced with both companies enriching each other’s mobile offerings.

“This acquisition validates the vision behind both companies’ strategies in the exploding mobile money market where Monitise has established a clear global leadership position,” said Pete Daffern, Clairmail CEO. “Both companies have incredible synergy and are dedicated to offering bank-grade services that empower consumers to bank, pay and shop across any mobile device. I could not be more proud of the Clairmail team and its accomplishments since founding in 2004, and look forward to working with the seasoned team behind Monitise to continue innovating and pushing the boundaries of mobile banking, payments and commerce worldwide.”

Pete Daffern will remain in his role as Head of the Clairmail business and will also join the Group Executive Board of Monitise, bringing his substantial experience and expertise to bear across the Group growth strategy.

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12Mar

King.com Buys Fabrication Games as it Pushes Onto Mobile, Eyes Possible 2013 IPO

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Swedish gaming company King.com just acquired Stockholm-based developer Fabrication Games in a big push to expand onto Android and iOS this year.

With the deal, King.com picks up Fabrication’s talent, games and developer tools. Terms weren’t disclosed, but I would assume the acquisition is priced in the talent-range. Fabrication had titles that cropped up on certain game category rankings like Sprinkle (which was developed by Mediocre AB) and Ionocraft Racing, but it lacked an enduring chart-topper. Fabrication had 12 employees and was founded as a spin-off of Jadestone Mobile.

King.com is following a slew of other casual and social gaming companies onto mobile, and the Fabrication acquisition should boost its ability build new titles quickly. Companies like Zynga, Crowdstar, OMGPOP and Funzio have all found some success in crossing over to iOS and Android from Facebook in the last year.

But King.com is doing the transition only now, after accumulating a footprint on Facebook with its hit Bubble Witch Saga, which has 16.7 million monthly active users, according to tracking service AppData. After running a destination site for years, the company made a serious push onto Facebook last year. Now it is the fourth largest game developer on Facebook after Zynga, Berlin-based Wooga and EA in terms of monthly active users. When King.com finally does make a serious debut on mobile, it will be an interesting test to see whether Facebook is an effective platform for driving downloads of mobile games.

On the back of this traction on Facebook, we’re hearing that the company is looking at a potential initial public offering next year on the NASDAQ, depending on market conditions. Chief executive Riccardo Zacconi is hunting around the West Coast for a Silicon Valley-based board member and is changing internal financial reporting to meet generally accepted accounting principles.

The company last raised funding seven years ago with a $43 million round from Apax Partners and Index Ventures.

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05Mar

More Mobile Ad Consolidation: Carrier SingTel Buys Amobee For $321 Million

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The mobile ad market is projected to bring in revenues of $2.6 billion this year, and while that is only a small fraction of the wider opportunity in digital advertising, the space — fueled by the smartphone boom — is only going to get bigger, and that is attracting those looking for an early foothold. Today saw another example of that coming into shape: pan-Asian carrier SingTel today announced it would buy California-based Amobee to expand its own mobile advertising business, in a deal with $321 million.

SingTel — which has 434 million mobile customers in 25 countries, including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand — is banking on brands wanting to target customers with mobile ads in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in emerging markets.

This is not SingTel’s first move into mobile ads but an extension of an existing operation: it says it already offers “geo-localization” services, and the capability of sending local deals and marketing promotions based on a customer’s profile.

Amobee will give SingTel the ability to integrate those existing capabilities with its own an ad-serving platform that covers banner and rich-media ads. As all of Amobee’s existing employees, including CEO Trevor Healy, will be joining SingTel, it also gives the carrier a bolted-on team experienced in mobile ads.

And as Amobee is in Redwood City, it also gives SingTel another route to tap into the Silicon Valley scene. The carrier has a venture fund, Innov8, which has made some investments in the Asia region (such as leading a $6.5 million round for group buying site Dealised) but this could open the door to looking at more companies in the U.S. as well.

What’s not clear is how this deal will affect Amobee’s existing customer relationships when SingTel takes the company in-house. Amobee is the world’s biggest mobile ad company but it has an impressive list of customers, in addition to its ability to deliver a full suite of mobile ad services. Current customers include Google, Skype, eBay, Barnes & Noble, Nokia and France Telecom. We will ask and update the post as we learn more.

Amobee will be rolled into SingTel’s Digital Life operations. This is a new business line that SingTel (like European counterpart Telefonica) has created to try to get the most out of all of its digital assets. The other two divisions at SingTel are consumer and enterprise/wholesale services.

E-marketer estimates that mobile advertising will be worth $2.6 billion in 2012, and while that number represents significant growth over the year before (it’s more than double the $1 billion of 2011) it’s still just a tiny fraction of the billions that will be made in digital advertising as a whole — and the number is positively dwarfed by overall ad market covering more traditional outlets like TV, newspapers, outdoor, etc. Still for those looking to pick the horse that might win future races, $321 million sounds like a good bet.

The deal is expected to complete before June 2012.

View full post on TechCrunch » Mobile

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29Feb

Foursquare Is Doing Big Things, So Existing Investor Spark Capital Buys $50M Of Employee Stock

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Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley spent this afternoon in Barcelona, explaining his location company’s potential to Mobile World Conference attendees. Someone else didn’t need to hear the presentation, though. Existing investor Spark Capital is buying $50 million worth of its stock, according to sources, in a deal to provide at least some employees with liquidity.

The result is a valuation north of of the already-impressive $600 million from its last round, I’ve heard. This is even though the company continues to focus on product development instead of trying to maximize revenue.

So what’s making investors excited? Well, the location app appears to be doing a lot of things right, despite the questions some have asked about its still-nascent business model. While Foursquare might not be the biggest social network in the world, the data it does have, and the ecosystem that is growing around it, makes for a promising story.

“Everyone thinks of Foursquare as check-ins and badges,” Crowley said at the conference today. “No, no. We’re recycling data and making recommendations for the real world.”

One example of what Crowley’s talking about here involves Foursquare’s new “Explore” feature, which recently arrived in the company’s mobile applications. Essentially a local recommendations guide, Foursquare Explore allows users to discover nearby restaurants, bars, coffee shops, nightlife spots, and other venues, either by category, name, or even something more specific, like “sushi” or “hamburgers.” The feature taps into Foursquare’s own social graph in order to recommend places your friends have visited and liked, while also providing tips and comments from Foursquare’s wider network. Initially, Explore was limited to making recommendations around your exact location, but with the most recent update, it now allows you to find recommended places anywhere in the world either by moving the map around on the screen or by typing in an exact location.

To date, Foursquare’s 15 million registered users have checked in 1.5 billion times, which in turn has generated rich information about some 750,000 restaurants and other venues. The company is working on creating visualizations of this data on any map, so users can see places nearby that they might want to go.

For businesses, it can break down visitor demographics for individual stores, letting them better tailor their wares to their customers. And, it’s of course also been busy running its coupons via its American Express deal from last year. And for developers, it can provide data via its API, which is already used by popular mobile applications like Instagram and Path.

However, the company only says that “we can’t comment on funding matters.”

And a closing note: TechCrunch writer Ingrid Lunden did an interview with Crowley at MWC today (which is not how we got this story), and she’ll be following this up with another post once she gets off the plane back to London.