Vodafone Ventures, the investment arm of UK-based Vodafone has made a minority investment in Israeli mobile technology test service provider, Perfecto Mobile.
When asked, both Vodafone Ventures and Perfecto Mobile – known until a year ago as Nexperience…
Vodafone Ventures, the investment arm of UK-based Vodafone has made a minority investment in Israeli mobile technology test service provider, Perfecto Mobile.
When asked, both Vodafone Ventures and Perfecto Mobile – known until a year ago as Nexperience – declined to comment on the amount of the investment, or the term of the investment; but it was thought to be in the region of several million pounds.
This follows hot on the heels of a US$7m fundraising round in September 2009 from Israeli VCs Carmel Ventures and Vertex Venture Capital. Perfecto has raised US$14m since it was founded, exclusive of the new funding from Vodafone.
The companies have an existing relationship. Vodafone pioneered the implementation of a private Vodafone Handset Cloud, powered by the Perfecto Mobile technology, as a service for developers of Vodafone 360 widgets to validate their applications on pre-launched and post launched handsets.
The Perfecto Mobile Handset Cloud helps developers to eliminate bottlenecks in launching new mobile applications and services by providing remote access to real mobile devices and an efficient automation environment to test, certify and monitor mobile services on real handsets.
“These are very exciting times for us as we are experiencing high demand for our services from mobile software developers, mobile operators and handset vendors,” said Eran Yaniv, CEO of Perfecto Mobile. “This investment will enable us to scale our Mobile Handset Cloud to more handsets, more geographies, and more networks.”
Perfecto will use the proceeds to expand its service to more handsets, regions, and networks, especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.