The funding was raised from its existing group of investors, which include 3i Group, GIMV NV, Sum International, and NIF Ventures. The funds will be used for ongoing development of the Intuwave business, in particular for getting its products to market. Previous funding rounds were used to the development of the company’s m-Network wireless middleware platform.
According to CEO Ariel Gorfung, the funds will support Intuwave through to cash flow break even early in 2004. The company has already increased its revenue from 867,000 pounds ($1.3m) in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2002, to 2.56m pounds ($4m) in the fiscal year ended March 2003.
The London, UK-based company is unusual among early-stage wireless software vendors, and boasts close partnerships with industry luminaries including IBM, Symbian, Pumatech and Macromedia. It claims to have had a hand in the development of key IBM wireless application technologies such as IBM’s MQSeries Everyplace and Lotus’s Mobile Notes. The company also has strong relationships with consumer electronics companies Kenwood and Sanyo.
Much of this interest clearly derives from Intuwave’s proposition. m-Network is designed to give developers of web or application server-based applications an easy migration path for putting their products on mobile devices using SymbianOS, Microsoft PocketPC, or Java.
Source: Computerwire
