Foolish Money: Local SMS Alerts Company 80108 Gets $12 Million Funding; Launches
The Europeans are laughing at us, surely: circa 2007, us Americans think of launching SMS alerts. And yep, a company gets $12 million to start it, no less. If you wanted any more proof that foolish money is back in venture capital, here it is.
Ok, enough. Now the news: 80108 Media, a Boston-based local SMS alerts company, has received $12 million in two round of funding, and has launched its service. The round included General Catalyst Partners, IDG Ventures Boston, Khosla Ventures, and Borealis Ventures as investors.
The idea: Create 70 different SMS channels in 15 cities that send updates about events and local insider news from the company’s hired “correspondents.” For now, the service is free, but the company may eventually implement paid subscriptions, ad-supported channels, and will allow people to click on the message and call the ticket or reservation booth at a restaurant (rev share).
To prove it has some editorial creds, it has hired Sid Holt , former managing editor of Rolling Stone, as VP of programming. Other management team is here.
I just read your article on 80108 which was spot on – compliments to Rafat. Here is what most don't know about 80108: Rob Adler and his band of merry men know NOTHING about the mobile space – just happen to have friends in all the right places (VCs). They have spent the last year meeting with knowledgable mobile professionals in the Boston area under the guise of "partnership" or "hiring" only to milk everyone dry for their mobile ideas and turn around and present them as their own. If karma has any say in the way these guys do business, 80108 will fall flat on its face.
Do you have proof of this? I ask becuase I am a Boston based mobile professional who has met them recently to discuss a partnership and they were very nice people.
this is hilarious :) nothing short of hilarious, and a masterstroke in fund-raising and pulling wool over VC eyes…beautiful
General Catalyst Partners is pretty savvy. So I'm assuming there's something else here. But….
Here's how simple this is: anyone who wants to can create a similar correspondents corps (there are 10 million subs who already serve as "correspondents" on local news on a mobile app in Korea) then take that localized data and partner with a SMS aggregator whether it would be Syniverse, Sybase 365, Clickatel, Mblox, or carriers' carriers such as Icetel, Manx Telecom, or Cable & Wireless, for the delivery and connectivity to the operators, then layer on an app to the IP data feed from subscribers' MISDN, then route it to a server that has the "local content." Nothing special there, and any of those inter-op providers could establish a similar service very simply. Watch out 8018….
You know Paul, it would ALSO be easy if you could route the IP data feed from the subscribers MISDN to a teleporter using a MIDP 2 thin java client and replicate each 'correspondent' using a SIP flux capacitor/replicator at the IMS Parlay interconnect… SIMPLE …… But everyone knows that our peace treaty with the Klingons forbids that kind of interoperability…
Everyone please watch out for Paul Rupperts verbal diarrhea!