Celltick Software Technologies has raised $11 million in its third financing round in order to finance expansion of its global activity. The main investors in the round were Israeli fund Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), which has been investing in Celltick since the latter was founded, and British fund Amadeus Capital Partners, which led the current round. Celltick deals in interactive broadcasting on wireless networks.
Celltick’s technology platform enables wireless companies to broadcast interactive content directly to the telephone screens of millions of subscribers. The technology includes a complete solution for every aspect of content presentation: transmission, network interfaces, and customer relations. It also gives a significant push to related information services in the wireless market, which is expected to total $48 billion by 2007.
The Hutchison Whampoa network in India, was the first to apply the technology. Since then, other operators around the world have ordered the service, including China United Telecommunications Corp. (China Unicom), Dialog GSM (MTN Networks Sri Lanka), and the Orange brand name in Israel. Celltick is currently focusing its penetration efforts on the European market, after winning new customers in Eastern Europe and Asia in recent months.
Amadeus Capital Partners director Richard Anton joined the Celltick board of directors, following his fund’s recent investment. He said, “Celltick’s product is the only one in the world that works successfully in the commercial market, and offers a complete end-to-end solution. This should eventually lead wireless customers to embrace content and mobile information services.”
Celltick CEO Yossi Wellingstein said, “We are very glad that Amadeus is joining our board of directors. The professionalism and specialized know-how of Amadeus and JVP will be useful to us in expanding Celltick’s activity, and our effect on the market. Our technology has already achieved results all over the world. With the help of the investors, we’ll realize the enormous potential of screen services for mobile phones in the information services field.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on March 7, 2005