SMS innovator secures £450k
Mobile phone messaging services provider, 2sms, has secured an investment of £450,000 for expansion in the UK and into the USA. The capital injection includes £250,000 from The Capital Fund, which invested alongside Richard Goldstein, who has also joined the 2sms board.
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Founded in 1996 with operations starting in 2000, 2sms provides text-messaging services to businesses, meaning they can easily and quickly contact staff and customers by mobile phone text message. Alerts can be sent to individuals or groups, and all data is fully secure and encrypted. The company also says it has developed software that can be bolted onto whatever back-end systems its clients are currently using, thereby avoiding technology conflicts.
The 2sms service allows companies to communicate with their employees and clients directly from the desktop. In terms of pricing, research carried out by 2sms and IBM indicates that savings of around 50 percent are typical when sending out text messages compared to manually telephoning and leaving voice mails.
Typical uses of the service can be as simple as informing a customer that their car is ready to be picked up or that a package has been delivered, to company internal communications, where messages can be sent to a number of employees, as well as in emergency situations, such as a bomb threat or a when a fire alarm is activated, to keep key employees up to date with what’s going on and with the procedures being implemented. Other uses include senior management teams being sent regular financial updates and HR departments sending out targeted operational information.
Tim King, 2sms chief executive, said, “We have developed a completely encrypted system, certified to ISO 27001 standards, which means our customers can be sure their data is secure,” and added, “We realise that if you want to get messages out to paramedics at 3a.m. then you also need to be sure they are received. So our team is ready to make sure they are - and not just between 9 and 5.”
Since commencing operations in 2000, 2sms has been concentrating on the UK market, where it now has over 1,500 customers, including a number of FTSE 100 companies.
The company is now looking at expanding into the US. Tim King said, “We now have a fantastic opportunity further to consolidate our position here in the UK, and also to start developing a significant customer base in the US, working closely with a major leading distributor. The investment from The Capital Fund and Richard Goldstein has come at just the right time. We’ll be using the funds to grow our US operations, expand our sales support team and continue to upgrade our systems and servers to cope with the rapidly increasing traffic levels we’re experiencing.”
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© Chilli Publishing Ltd 2008 |
18 JAN 2008 |
