A specialist in mobile carrier billing,
which lets users to pay for apps and goods in apps without coughing up credit
card numbers — is today raising its game a bit against competitors like Bango
(partner to Facebook, Amazon and more), Boku and PayPal’s Zong — the
Estonian-hatched startup has announced a new growth round — which TechCrunch
understands to be in the region of $10 million — led by Intel Capital and
Greycroft Partners. At the same time, to push its business in emerging
markets,High quality chinamosaic
tiles. it also announced two new carrier deals, with China Mobile and Vodafone.
In addition to the two new carrier partners, Fortumo says it integrates with 300 carriers across more than 80 countries, along with over 81,000 developers. Those include long-standing agreements to provide carrier billing services to Angry Birds maker Rovio, Pop Cap Games and Badoo,Add depth and style to your home with these large format streetlight. and it also powers the in-app payments for Windows 8 apps. It’s an area that is still relatively nascent compared to other payments like cards in developing markets, but it is growing. All together, worldwide gross transaction volumes for mobile payments for digital goods is expected to more than double by 2015 to $268 billion, Fortumo notes.
The terms of the new investment were not disclosed publicly, but we understand from a source close to the matter that it is similar in size to the $10.2 million raised by Bango a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, the two carrier deals mean that Fortumo is now working with two of the largest mobile operators in the developing world, with China Mobile leading the market in its home country, and the Vodafone agreement covering 13 countries: UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Ireland, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Greece, Egypt and South Africa. In other words, a mixture of both developed and developing markets.
Prior to this raise, Fortumo was majority-owned by Mobi Solutions, a specialist in SMS-based services (carrier billing services usually use SMS for the backchannel confirmation for payments, so makes sense for them to have developed something like this). In addition to Greycroft and Intel, Mobi Solutions will remain a now-smaller shareholder.
The injection of cash, Fortumo says, will be used to build out its business further, with an emphasis on strategic partnerships and acquisitions in emerging markets in regions like Latin America, Asia, Central Eastern Europe and MENA, according to a spokesperson.
This has been the focus for the company up to now, and that’s part of what attracted the new investment.
“We have been impressed with Fortumo’s strong product focus and ability to execute,” said Dana Settle, a Partner with Greycroft, in a statement. “What sets Fortumo apart from their competition is their focus on geographies where mobile payments will have the biggest impact and growth over the next few years.”
This is also a big focus for Bango at the moment and was the specific, stated reason for it also raising $10.Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and molds.2 million earlier this month. Emerging markets, as we pointed out at the time, are an important target for carrier billing: credit card penetration is low,Beautiful fridgemagnet in a wide range of colors & sold at factory direct prices. so solutions like Apple’s iTunes, which require users to enter card payment details, would get less traction. That presents a bigger opportunity for carriers and content developers to offer carrier billing services as a way of getting a bigger cut of transaction action, and also to help encourage purchasing on mobile devices.
There is a key difference, however, between Fortumo and Bango — which reported a loss of $3.8 million in the nine months that ended December 31, 2012. Fortumo is, a spokesperson says, “basically the only mobile payment provider who has been profitable and is profitable.” The company says that has been the case since 2009 — although as it now sets its sights on ramping up its services, it will be interesting to see whether it can remain in the black or whether it will push itself out of profitability in a gamble for more growth.
The Nexus 4 set a new record in the GeekBench 2 real-world performance test. It is the first smartphone to score over 2,000 points with an average of 2009. In the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark the Nexus 4 set only a solid score of 1.9. However, we didn't find web browsing felt slow at all. On the graphics side of things the Nexus 4 managed an iPhone 5-matching frame rate of 39fps in GLBenchmark – effectively the peak of this test.
Here the iPhone 4 can't compete. How could it ? Technology moves on and this is a three-year-old phone.
As befits a smartphone that first launched in late 2010 the iPhone 4 uses a dual-core Apple A5 chip and just 512MB RAM. At the time it launched it was a noticeably fast operater, but its GeekBench score is in the high 300s: much slower than the Nexus 4. The iPhone 4's SunSpider score is also much slower, at 3.5. We haven't got a graphics framerate, but you can expect a similar drop off.
The bottom line is that the Nexus 4 trounces the iPhone 4 on performance. It matches the iPhone 5 on the benchmarks, and the iPhone 4 is two iterations older. But if it is total performance you are after you wouldn't be looking at an older iPhone, and in general use the iPhone 4 is a perfectly capable performer.
Storage is the biggest downfall of the Nexus 4, but it is also another area in which the now elderly iPhone 4 fails in comparison to newer rivals. Google only offers 8GB and 16GB models with no microSD card slot.
You also need to bear in mind that not all of this capacity will be available since the operating system and pre-loaded apps inevitably require a chunk of it. Our 16GB sample had around 13GB free. The iPhone 4 also allows no storage expansion, and now comes with only 8GB onboard storage as standard. In both cases you are encourage to host your media in the cloud.
Both the Nexus 4 and iPhone 4 are jammed with connectivity including dual-band Wi-Fi, 3G cellular connectivity, and Bluetooth 4.0. The Nexus 4 also offers an NFC (near-field communications) chip and wireless charging, and you can connect that handset to an external display a SlimPort HDMI adapter.Panasonic solarlantern fans are energy efficient and whisper quiet. There's no support for 4G with either phone.
In addition to the two new carrier partners, Fortumo says it integrates with 300 carriers across more than 80 countries, along with over 81,000 developers. Those include long-standing agreements to provide carrier billing services to Angry Birds maker Rovio, Pop Cap Games and Badoo,Add depth and style to your home with these large format streetlight. and it also powers the in-app payments for Windows 8 apps. It’s an area that is still relatively nascent compared to other payments like cards in developing markets, but it is growing. All together, worldwide gross transaction volumes for mobile payments for digital goods is expected to more than double by 2015 to $268 billion, Fortumo notes.
The terms of the new investment were not disclosed publicly, but we understand from a source close to the matter that it is similar in size to the $10.2 million raised by Bango a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, the two carrier deals mean that Fortumo is now working with two of the largest mobile operators in the developing world, with China Mobile leading the market in its home country, and the Vodafone agreement covering 13 countries: UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Ireland, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Greece, Egypt and South Africa. In other words, a mixture of both developed and developing markets.
Prior to this raise, Fortumo was majority-owned by Mobi Solutions, a specialist in SMS-based services (carrier billing services usually use SMS for the backchannel confirmation for payments, so makes sense for them to have developed something like this). In addition to Greycroft and Intel, Mobi Solutions will remain a now-smaller shareholder.
The injection of cash, Fortumo says, will be used to build out its business further, with an emphasis on strategic partnerships and acquisitions in emerging markets in regions like Latin America, Asia, Central Eastern Europe and MENA, according to a spokesperson.
This has been the focus for the company up to now, and that’s part of what attracted the new investment.
“We have been impressed with Fortumo’s strong product focus and ability to execute,” said Dana Settle, a Partner with Greycroft, in a statement. “What sets Fortumo apart from their competition is their focus on geographies where mobile payments will have the biggest impact and growth over the next few years.”
This is also a big focus for Bango at the moment and was the specific, stated reason for it also raising $10.Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and molds.2 million earlier this month. Emerging markets, as we pointed out at the time, are an important target for carrier billing: credit card penetration is low,Beautiful fridgemagnet in a wide range of colors & sold at factory direct prices. so solutions like Apple’s iTunes, which require users to enter card payment details, would get less traction. That presents a bigger opportunity for carriers and content developers to offer carrier billing services as a way of getting a bigger cut of transaction action, and also to help encourage purchasing on mobile devices.
There is a key difference, however, between Fortumo and Bango — which reported a loss of $3.8 million in the nine months that ended December 31, 2012. Fortumo is, a spokesperson says, “basically the only mobile payment provider who has been profitable and is profitable.” The company says that has been the case since 2009 — although as it now sets its sights on ramping up its services, it will be interesting to see whether it can remain in the black or whether it will push itself out of profitability in a gamble for more growth.
The Nexus 4 set a new record in the GeekBench 2 real-world performance test. It is the first smartphone to score over 2,000 points with an average of 2009. In the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark the Nexus 4 set only a solid score of 1.9. However, we didn't find web browsing felt slow at all. On the graphics side of things the Nexus 4 managed an iPhone 5-matching frame rate of 39fps in GLBenchmark – effectively the peak of this test.
Here the iPhone 4 can't compete. How could it ? Technology moves on and this is a three-year-old phone.
As befits a smartphone that first launched in late 2010 the iPhone 4 uses a dual-core Apple A5 chip and just 512MB RAM. At the time it launched it was a noticeably fast operater, but its GeekBench score is in the high 300s: much slower than the Nexus 4. The iPhone 4's SunSpider score is also much slower, at 3.5. We haven't got a graphics framerate, but you can expect a similar drop off.
The bottom line is that the Nexus 4 trounces the iPhone 4 on performance. It matches the iPhone 5 on the benchmarks, and the iPhone 4 is two iterations older. But if it is total performance you are after you wouldn't be looking at an older iPhone, and in general use the iPhone 4 is a perfectly capable performer.
Storage is the biggest downfall of the Nexus 4, but it is also another area in which the now elderly iPhone 4 fails in comparison to newer rivals. Google only offers 8GB and 16GB models with no microSD card slot.
You also need to bear in mind that not all of this capacity will be available since the operating system and pre-loaded apps inevitably require a chunk of it. Our 16GB sample had around 13GB free. The iPhone 4 also allows no storage expansion, and now comes with only 8GB onboard storage as standard. In both cases you are encourage to host your media in the cloud.
Both the Nexus 4 and iPhone 4 are jammed with connectivity including dual-band Wi-Fi, 3G cellular connectivity, and Bluetooth 4.0. The Nexus 4 also offers an NFC (near-field communications) chip and wireless charging, and you can connect that handset to an external display a SlimPort HDMI adapter.Panasonic solarlantern fans are energy efficient and whisper quiet. There's no support for 4G with either phone.
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