NFC mobile advertising startup Tapit raises seed funding

Tapit is a new mobile advertising startup, founded in March 2011, that facilitates the sharing and delivery offer NFC-enabled phone by simply clicking anywhere Tapit, you can find the logo.

The company is currently raises seed round of financing from Sydney angels in record time – just 22 days from the field until the round was signed to. This is the quickest investment to date for Angels, Sydney, not-for-profit membership Organization for Angels, which usually invests in Sydney-based startups.

NFC (near field communication), short-range wireless technology, is often associated with mobile payments and mobile wallets these days, as a new way to enable the purchase to the cash. But this is just one of many cases of possible uses for technology that can also support things like file sharing and media between devices, advertising, ticketless deals and much more. It can even be used to perform an action in a NTT DOCOMO TAP "follow" offer, which allows two Twitter users to each other simply by clicking the phone.

The idea is to use the Tapit NFC for use in marketing campaigns, working with agencies, brands, handset manufacturers and carriers. Marketing services include mobile commerce, coupon distribution, ticket sales, surveys and reviews, content delivery, contests and social community (e.g. tap here to "like" us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter).

The company is already involved in several campaigns this year – one for a group of radio Nova Australian radio network billboard JCDecaux and another for Australia's channel 10 TV show "LATVIA" and the third with NFC-based sales in shopping malls.

Says director Jamie Kaninghèm Tapit, speed, which was closed in this round is the approval group Tapit, and business models that we have created around our unique NFC technology. All whom we meet likes the idea of Tapit, it is addictive.

NFC, indeed, will step up from the now ubiquitous barcode scanning technology, which involves the use of Smartphone applications to scan QR codes via camera phone. Unfortunately the NFC usually requires accompanying chip, built into the phone itself. Due to this requirement, it is now back, a limited number of supported phones.

Nevertheless, analysts bullish on NFC in the future, with ABI, predicting 35 million phones to 2012, and Frost & Sullivan, assessment of about 868 million by the year 2015.

Tapit conditions in seed investment were not disclosed, but the Fund normally invests sidecar Angels Sydney between $ 100 K-$ 500 K in its portfolio companies.

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Augme technologies for the acquisition of mobile advertising firm Hipcricket for $ 44.5 million.

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Mobile marketing service, Augme technologies, today announced that it will acquire Hipcricket, mobile marketing and advertising platform for $ 44.5 million — $ 6 million of whom are in cash and $ 38.5 million. $. United States in the common stock. Hipcricket's shareholders must approve the purchase before it can be finalized, however, the transaction also call for a 12-month payment to make out an additional $ 27.5 million, it seems that the deal would be approved. Augme will take on all Hipcricket in over 50 employees, but firm mobile ad will continue to operate from its offices in Kirkland, Washington.

We profiled Augme in June as a company under the radar on the rise in the mobile advertising space, when she released the latest version of its life ads platform. As we wrote at the time "Ad life allows marketers, brands and agencies to plan, build, test, deploy, and track mobile marketing programs — with the most notable feature of the patented technology Augme is now the fact that he is able to reach target groups the remaining device agnostic".

Purchase Augme in Hipcricket should be hot on the heels of its acquisition Jagtag for $ 5.5 million two weeks ago. Jagtag specializes in barcodes and QR codes and Hipcricket offers marketing solutions that include SMS, MMS, mobile websites, advertising networks, and branded applications, Augme is firing on all cylinders in an attempt to round out its platform.

"We expect additional resources Augme, JAGTAG and Hipcricket, combined, will provide the most powerful Augme mobile marketing solutions best of breed global brand leaders, backed by strong intellectual property portfolio, including patented technology and software as a service technology platform (" SaaS ")," said Augme Director Paul arena.

Augme publicly traded on the over the counter bulletin board since 2002. Total income of the company in 2011, $ 2.8 million, but Augme management told me last month that it expects revenue to 16 million dollars in the fiscal year 2012 and will achieve positive cash flow next year. The company is being prepared as a hot growth sector (Gartner expects mobile ad revenue hit $ 3.3 billion until the end of 2011, more than double revenue in 2010 — and the hockey stick-2015 to $ 20.6 billion), it wouldn't be surprising to see the company continue to acquire attractive mobile solutions, adding his puzzle pieces, as it makes the game to become a leader in the field of mobile marketing.

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