Android app developer Pops Ltd. has raised $1.5 million from Mangrove Capital Partners. Pops' application enables Android users to personalize incoming message alerts, on the mobile phones, Facebook, e-mail, WhatsApp, etc.
This is the third investment in an Israeli start-up by Mangrove Capital, one of Europe's most prestigious venture capital firms, whose investments include Skype. The two previous investments in Israel were in flash website developer Wix Ltd. and Soho OS Ltd., which has developed an online business management solution for small businesses. Mangrove partner Michael Jackson has joined Pops' board following the investment.
Pops co-CEOs Yaron Orenstein and Nir Ofir, and CTO Kfir Goldman founded the company in 2010. The company's application can be downloaded for free.
"We developed a technology that sites on the Android operating system and basically listens to everything that happens on the mobile device," Orenstein told "Globes". "When it identifies an alert, it lets the user attach an animated clip called Pop, customizing it in the same way that he designs his Facebook page or phone screensaver to distinguish between the different alerts he receives."
There have been almost 500,000 downloads of the application in the past four months, without any marketing effort. "It was all by word of mouth, which is the best viral way there is," says Orenstein. He added that the founders worked without pay or investment, while working for other ventures. "In August, we began to devote full-time to the product and realized its huge market potential. The average user gets 3,000 alerts a month - it has become the biggest media that no one has exploited at all."
"Globes": How do you make money from this?
Orenstein: "There are already a lot of programs onto which mobile phone alerts can be attached, and in the future, there will be premium content for which we will charge."
This is where the big brands come in, and Orenstein says that Pops is already in talks with several leading recording companies in the world to create unique music alerts. "I believe that, in six months, we'll start applying our business model. We're currently focused on developing our product and the end user," he says.
Pops has seven employees, and plans to hire more programmers.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 13, 2012
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