A team of some of the world's most experienced players in the emerging field of wireless Internet services have joined forces with seasoned Internet executives and investors to form MobileSpring, Inc. The "Silicon Alley"-based company is the first of its kind in the United States: a startup factory focused exclusively on developing and deploying web-based services to mobile businesses and consumers.
MobileSpring's management team is led by Mark Caron, President and CEO. Mark was a co-founder of Omnipoint Communications, one of the most successful startups in the history of the U.S. wireless industry, reaching one million customers in three years. The team includes executives from the United States and Europe that are responsible for many pioneering wireless Internet services, such as: -0-
*T
-- one of world's first wireless banking applications
-- the first commercial wireless email gateway and information
services offerings for a U.S. cellular/PCS operator
-- one of world's first mobile Internet "portals"
-- one of the world's first mobile portals based on Wireless Access
Protocol (WAP)
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The investment team is led by i-Hatch Ventures, which has quickly emerged as one of the leading early-stage Internet investors in New York City. Chip Austin, General Partner and co-founder of i-Hatch, will serve on MobileSpring's Board of Directors. Previous to founding I-Hatch in 1999, Chip was President & CEO of Bertelsmann Online and launched BOL.com in Europe.
"It goes without saying that the wireless web is poised for tremendous growth, and we couldn't have found a better team to work with," said Austin. "These are the people that have been building the bandwagon that everyone else is now jumping on."
The four other investors in MobileSpring also add great value to the company with their focus on early stage, hands-on investing in both the Internet and wireless. They include: -0-
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-- PRIMEDIA Ventures, the corporate venture fund of PRIMEDIA Inc. led
by internet veteran Larry Phillips
-- Venturehouse Group led by Mark Ein, a co-founder of Aether Systems
-- Impact Venture Partners, led by Adam Dell, a former Partner with
Crosspoint Venture Partners
-- Broadview Associates, the world's largest M&A investment bank in
the areas of IT, communications and media. Holt Thrasher, who
leads Broadview's wireless practice in the United States, will
join MobileSpring's Advisory Board, as will several other
executives from the Internet and wireless industries worldwide. *T
MobileSpring currently has a number of projects it is developing based on the team's insights into the global wireless Internet market. The company will incubate these and other ideas into full-fledged mobile services using the its extensive experience in wireless networks, applications development, and marketing and business development for mobile and Internet services.
In order to bring the concept of "Internet-time" to the wireless world, the company will develop world-class capabilities to quickly create fully functioning prototypes of its wireless services and rapidly market-test those services in real-world conditions. The first MobileSpring projects will be spun-off later this year into separate companies. Many of these "spin-offs" will be joint ventures with established companies from the United States and overseas which own such strategic assets as large customer bases and distribution channels.
"Our goal is to deploy services that fundamentally change how people that are mobile get work done, make transactions, and interact with one another. This requires the services to be available across multiple wireless networks and be optimized for various wireless devices," MindSpring President Mark Caron said. "It also requires an intense focus on the human behavior issues. We will draw on our many years of real-world experience with wireless Internet services to make sure we exceed users' expectations."
"Developing and deploying truly useful and ubiquitous mobile Internet services is quite complicated", noted Anders Brandt, another Advisory Board member and CEO of made4net, the largest Internet incubator in Norway. "In addition, the U.S. poses unique challenges given the 10 to 15 incompatible cellular, PCS, paging, satellite and other network standards that support mobile data, as well as the many different kinds of mobile devices and operating systems in use. We look forward to working with MobileSpring to manage the technology chaos and enable wireless web services to flourish in the United States."
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