| Type | Public company (NASDAQ: VELT) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Mobile Marketing and Advertising |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | • Alex Moukas, Chief Executive Officer • Chris Kaskavelis, Chief Operating Officer • Menelaos Scouloudis, Chief Commerce Officer • Wilson Cheung, Chief Financial Officer • Sally Rau, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel • Dakota Sullivan, SVP, General Manager North America • Paul Cheng, SVP, Corporate Development • Ian Johnson, SVP, Product • Nicholas Negroponte, Non-Executive Director • David Man, Non-Executive Director • David Hobley, Non-Executive Director • Jerry Goldstein, Non-Executive Director |
| Products | • Velti mGage (consists of mGage Command, mGage Reach, mGage Create, mGage Interact, mGage Measure) • Velti mGage Marketplace |
| Services | • Mobile media planning • Mobile ad serving/ad routing • Mobile websites • Mobile applications • Mobile commerce • Mobile CRM • Loyalty solutions • Opt-in advertising • Large scale promotions for mobile operators |
| Website | www.velti.com www.mobclix.com |
Velti (NASDAQ: VELT) is a provider of mobile marketing and advertising technology for brands, advertising agencies, mobile operators, and media groups. In 2010, Velti used its platform to run more than 2,700 campaigns for more than 825 brands, advertising agencies and mobile operators worldwide.
Velti’s traditional clients are telecommunications providers around the world such as Vodafone, Orange, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Telenor, Cellular South, China Mobile, China Unicom, and Telkomsel. As of 2011, 8 of the 10 largest mobile operators (based on number of subscribers) used.[1]
Velti also offers mobile marketing and advertising services to brands including many among the Fortune 1,000 in both Europe and the United States.
Velti has offices in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, London, Dublin, Athens, Düsseldorf, Paris, Moscow, Sofia, Shanghai, Beijing, and New Delhi. The registered office of the company is in Jersey, Channel Islands.
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Velti was founded in 2001 by Alex Moukas[2] and Chris Kaskavelis[3] as a software and ASP provider serving the telecommunications industry. The same year, Nicholas Negroponte, then the laboratory chairman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, joined the company as a non-executive director. In 2002, Velti secured its first mobile marketing and notifications engagement with Vodafone; by the end of that year, the company had reached 35 employees.
Velti launched its expansion into the United States in 2003 with the creation of a U.S. sales team based in a new office in Boston, Massachusetts. Over the following three years, the company created text messaging applications for Sony Ericsson and Odeon, won its first contract with Telecom Italia (TIM), and secure revenue share agreements with five Tier 1 European mobile operators. New solutions included Argos,[4] a fully managed mobile commerce service, and a mobile music community and m-ticketing program developed for Orange UK.
After a 2006 initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange's AIM Market,[5] Velti further expanded its U.S. operations with the opening of an office in New York. A San Francisco office was created the following year.
Beginning in 2007, Velti entered into a series of joint ventures and partnerships designed to expand the company’s global footprint and service offerings. That year, Velti partnered with the Interpublic Group to create Ansible, a mobile marketing joint venture.[6] Operating as a standalone business unit within the Interpublic Futures Marketing Group, Ansible used Velti technology and services to work with brands, agencies and content providers in all markets, including agencies throughout the Interpublic holding company. Ansible is headquartered in New York with offices in San Francisco, Detroit, and London. The joint venture concluded in 2010 and Ansible is now wholly owned by the Interpublic Group.
In 2008, Velti gained the ability to execute mobile campaigns in the fast-growing Chinese market through the opening of a new office in Beijing and an investment in CASEE,[7] the largest mobile advertising exchange in China. In India, Velti partnered with HT Media Limited, India’s second-largest media group, on a mobile marketing joint venture called HT Mobile Solutions.[8] Operating in New Delhi and Mumbai, the company uses Velti technology to help network operators, brands, and agencies plan, execute, and monitor media campaigns across all media channels, including mobile, TV, online, and print. 2008 also saw the opening of a new Velti office in Moscow.[9]
In 2009, Velti announced the acquisition of Ad Infuse, a provider of personalized mobile advertising in the U.S., broadening Velti’s U.S. presence and increasing the company’s headcount to more than 400, including more than 200 technology staff.[10] An enhanced global product offering helped the company win the business of major operators including Vodafone, Orange, MTS, Orascom-WIND, MTEL, Vivatel, and SingTel.
In 2010, Velti launched its current flagship solution, Velti mGageTM, an integrated mobile marketing platform addressing all aspects of the mobile marketing and advertising lifecycle,[11] which by the end of the year had run over 2,700 campaigns for more than 800 customers. Also in 2010, the company announced the acquisition of Mobclix,[12] the leading exchange for ad inventory on mobile applications. At the time of acquisition, Mobclix served more than 3,280 ad requests per second or 8.5 billion ad requests per month through more than 15,000 mobile application developers who collectively had downloaded the Mobclix SDK more than 312,000 times. A second 2010 acquisition added Media Cannon,[13] a developer of mobile advertising tools and technology. By the end of 2010, Velti had grown to more than 500 employees in 30 countries.
In January, 2011, Velti completed an initial public offering of 12 million common stock shares on NASDAQ under the trading symbol VELT. The IPO raised approximately $150 million.[14] In March 2011, Velti launched the Velti mGage Marketplace, the world’s first global mobile media exchange.[15]
The Velti mGage mobile marketing platform supports processes across the marketing and advertising lifecycle including media planning, ad serving and ad routing services, the creation of mobile Internet sites and landing pages, various post-click mobile marketing activities, and mobile analytics.[16]