If Motricity can do it, perhaps others in the space can, too. MBlox, which enables payments for mobile data services, has told the WSJ that it generated “north” of $110 million in revenue in 2009, and may be seeking additional capital for further acquisitions. It may even consider an IPO in 2011 if revenues stay at this level.
MBlox originally built its business around premium SMS services but has since diversified into other areas such as enterprise messaging and “sender pays” services. We talked to a spokesperson who told us that these new areas are still a relatively small part of the business. At the same time, the premium SMS business has faced some challenges – namely regulatory scrutiny of the area after some companies were discovered to be overcharging users.
Andrew Dark, the CEO of mBlox, said in an email that the company has ditched some of its clients as a result of the scrutiny: “Where clients have proved incapable of operating to the defined standards or have been unable to meet their contractual commitments to mBlox, we have terminated those relationships within the terms of our contract and it is these contracts – held in multiple geographies, which we have chosen to cancel due to their financial or reputational unprofitability.” But premium SMS providers – the more scrupulous ones, of course – remain a major part of the company’s business today.
—One other area that mBlox has been pushing for several quarters now is this idea of “sender pays” data services, where companies offering mobile services effectively subsidize the data cost for the service. For example, Dark tells us that a UK bus company, Arriva, is using mBlox to offer a mobile ticketing service. Travelers can purchase electronic tickets, which are paid for through their mobile airtime accounts, and these are sent to their handset, with the ticket buying and sending all free of charge, regardless of their data plan.
– The company, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA and London, says it has around 500 mobile operator customers in 180 markets and has raised some $75 million to date. That figure, a spokesperson for the company tells us, represents both money raised by mBlox and MobileSys, a competitor that it acquired in 2003. Backers include Duff Ackerman and Goodrich, Norwest Venture Partners, Scale Venture Partners and Trident Venture Partners.
Ones of those backers says there is no pressure for an IPO soon. Kate Mitchell, a general partner with Scale Venture Partners tells the WSJ: “They are expanding their footprint geographically and they are expanding their product line. There is no rush to go public.”