News & Events
SNAPin Snaps Up Another $13M
SNAPin Software thinks your phone should teach you how to use those fancy features.
February 7, 2006
Does anyone who buys a new cell phone ever read their user manual? SNAPin Software, which on Tuesday snapped up another $13 million in venture funding, doesn't think so.
That's why the Bellevue, Washington-based company developed software that can teach mobile phone users how to use all the nifty features that come with their phones.
The idea is that once users have the know-how, they'll spend more money using premium mobile phone features that allow them to do things such as download games and ringtones, send photos and text messages, and access data over the wireless Internet.
Plus, the software is expected to save providers of mobile services much of the money they now spend on customer support, helping users to use their phone's services.
“The complexity of the phones that are being offered today is significantly greater than in the past,” said CEO Bob Lewis. “We're taking advantage of all the memory and capacity that's in phones today to provide services that have never been able to be provided at the handset.”
The additional $13 million, gathered in a third round of financing, brought its fundraising total to $18 million. The company, founded in 2003, plans to use the cash to nearly double its staff to about 60 and roll out products to mobile operators worldwide through technical trials and pilot programs.
The company has already tested the products with three European wireless carriers, and expects one of them to do a full rollout of the system in the first half of this year.
SNAPin is also in talks with U.S. carriers, and by the end of this year or early next year expects to be booking substantial revenues, though executives wouldn't say when the company is likely to begin turning a profit. They did say they expect this venture funding round to be the company's last.
Fundamental Change
“Just as the cash machine fundamentally changed retail banking by giving consumers a faster and easier way to manage their accounts, SNAPin's category-defining products are providing a similar sea change for mobile networks,” said David Walrod, a general partner at Oak Investment Partners, which led the financing round.
In addition to the software designed to teach owners how to use their mobile phones, SNAPin offers three other products in its suite of software for cell phone operators.
One is a customer support module that intercepts calls to mobile operators' customer service lines to offer users a menu of frequently asked questions and their answers.
Between 40 and 60 percent of mobile customers call in to their carriers' help centers every month, and these calls can cost providers as much as $50 each, according to SNAPin executives.
“There really aren't economies of scale when you talk about call centers,” said Mr. Lewis. By answering many customer questions with the software built into their handsets, SNAPin's technology can save carriers on call-center staffing and infrastructure costs, he said.
Remote Diagnostics
The company also offers maintenance software that allows service providers to run diagnostics remotely on their customers' cell phones and determine whether problems result from user or network errors. This software can be set up with monitoring routines that can find and fix problems before phone users even know they exist, said Mr. Lewis.
And SNAPin's Metrics software gives providers the ability to use the cell phones in their networks to test network performance and coverage. Providers can also see detailed usage data on any phone in the network with the software, allowing them, for example, to monitor how many contacts a user has stored in her phone, how much time she's spent charging the battery, what the phone's default language is set to, and how much of its memory she's used.
In addition to Oak Investment Partners, other participants in the funding round were Frazier Technology Ventures and Hunt Ventures.
Article also available on Red Herring's site.
Media & PR contact:
Alani Kalfayan
Communique PR
+1 206.282.4923 ext.118
Alani@communiquepr.com
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