2012 Celebrating British mobile content
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Silver Partner
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Frog Capital is a London-based European investment firm, specialising in growth capital for technology-driven businesses across the cleantech and IT & digital media sectors. Founded and backed by one of Europe’s most significant family offices, Frog is as entrepreneurial as the businesses in which we invest. With €100m under management, Frog leads or partners on investments where companies require between €2 million and €20 million of funding for expansion capital, minority purchases, management buy-outs or acquisitions.
Frog also invests in quoted companies when the opportunity fits. Within IT & digital media, the Frog team has a long, successful track record across a wide range of areas. The team has helped build businesses across the sector, from data centre to desktop, from enterprise software to e-commerce, and from new media to mobile. Frog’s current IT & digital media investments include e-commerce analytics leader eCommera, brand funded video content business Rockabox
The Mews, 1a Birkenhead Street, London WC1H 8BA +44 (0)20 7833 0555
Media, social and mobile games developer Mediatonic, AIM-listed identity and fraud management specialist GB Group, and Rated People, the online platform for homeowners to connect with quality, local tradesmen. Frog Capital works with ambitious management teams to affect a metamorphosis through the clever application of not only capital, but also honest appraisal, strong networks, market knowledge, experience, and close teamwork.
Top 50 Mobile Innovators Monday, September 10th 2012 24 London, 24 Kingly Street, London, W1B 5QP
The judges ME would like to thank its esteemed judges, who took time out to opine on the state of the market, drink booze and debate the nominees for the ME Top 50 Innovators list. They are: Simon Davies, founder of Krowd9 Simon sold Snaptu to Facebook for a considerable sum and is now prepping a sports-based social network for launch. He has seen the inside of many VC boardrooms. Joe Krancki, Frog Capital Joe gave a perspective from the POV of the investment community – and concentrated brilliantly given that his wife told him she was pregnant just before the session. Ronan de Renesse, senior analyst, Analysys Mason The Frenchman with the Irish name brought a certain savoire faire to proceedings. Ross Wellby, director, IMR Executive Knows more about UK mobile than most having placed many of its senior execs in their current positions. Ingrid Silver, partner, SNR Denton If the UK mobile content industry had to call its lawyer, it would probably speed dial Ingrid. She’s worked closely with the business for nearly a decade. Derek Neil, director of corporate finance, BDO Derek has a formidable CV in fund raising, private equity and accountancy. Useful man for our top 50 to know. James Parton, head of European marketing, Twilio James completed many tours of duty with O2 before being conditionally discharged to bang the drum for Twilio. And he does genuinely play the drums – very well. Mike Shaw, editor of ME The new boy and technophile talked eloquently – and avoided being bullied by the old timers.
Gold Partner
www.mobile-ent.biz
Silver Partner
2012
Welcome to the Mobile Entertainment Top 50 Mobile Innovators reception... Last year, ME presented its first ever Top 50 Mobile Innovators listing, and it was a Twitter-fest. The retweets went off the scale – demonstrating the magnitude of interest in UK mobile, and also the capacity of its leading lights to promote the heck out of themselves. And why not? The British mobile scene is full of fantastic people with great ideas. It was a pleasure to give them publicity and champagne. And now here we are doing it all again in 2012, backed by our generous partners Twilio, Frog Capital, IMR, SNR Denton and BDO. What shone through in the nominations process was the sheer diversity of mobile sectors being addressed by smart UK firms. Sure, there were the old standbys - gaming, ticketing, payments, advertising – but there were also plenty exploring newer opportunities. Congrats then to those blazing a trail for children’s apps, e-books, app store analytics and enterprise apps. At last year’s reception, attendees were treated to a talk by Playfish’s CEO Kristian Segerstrale, who knows about building great companies. At the end of a thrilling 20 minutes, it was hard to get the mic off him. Kristian – a Finn – lauded the entrepreneurial spirit of the UK and its pull for those from overseas with a similar outlook. It was a fine climax to the evening. Let’s hope some of the Top 50 get a Segerstrale-style exit… Tim Green Executive editor, Mobile Entertainment
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2012
Law in order Regulation, IP issues, financing – there’s a legal minefield waiting out there for the entrepreneurially minded. But there’s also help. We chatted with Ingrid Silver, a specialist in telecoms and media law and partner at global practice SNR Denton …
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e live in a litigious world. The 21st century business environment is digital and global - which means ideas can turn into fortunes fast. That means investments, acquisitions, exits. But it also means IP can be copied - instantly and endlessly. These changes have transformed the nature of commerce and brought about sometimes bewildering changes in local regulation. You might find you need a lawyer. SNR Denton believes it is better placed than most to counsel the vibrant mobile ecosystem - and the companies (like those in the ME Top 50) that make it tick. The practice is one of the top 25 biggest law firms in the world, with over 1,400 lawyers working in more than 60 locations. It specialises in:
Communication transactions Media regulation Strategic sourcing/outsourcing Internet and data privacy Antitrust and competition IP counseling and litigation Advocacy and government affairs Dispute resolution According to Ingrid Silver, partner at the London office's Technology, Media and Telecoms practice, SNR Denton 04
SNR Denton is a global law powerhouse with a UK office in the heart of the City.
differentiates itself from others by virtue of its sector focus. “We strive very hard to develop genuine expertise in all the sectors we're active in. And that's why we work with everyone from the multi-national enterprise to the small start-up. I think our global reach is also very important too. It's a big advantage to our mobile clients having offices wherever they are.” Silver is right at the heart of SNR Denton's large team of mobile experts . She is arguably the best connected and most knowledgeable legal expert on the UK content scene, having served for four years as a board member with the Mobile
Entertainment Forum (for which she remains a special advisor). She is also the European president of the Global Telecoms Womens Network, and has worked with clients including Nokia, mBlox, Sony and more. Ingrid is also well-versed in European law thanks to her background as a fluent French speaker who trained as a lawyer in Geneva and worked at the European Parliament and the European Commission. SNR Denton is a global law practice with a telecoms, media and technology unit based in London. It is a partner of the ME Top 50 Mobile Innovators project.
www.mobile-ent.biz
2012
Twilio: helping people speak to apps It used to be almost impossible for small start-ups to create products based on voice or text. Monolithic aggregators and arcane operator hierarchies stood in their way. Not any more. US firm Twilio has changed the game. We spoke to its head of European marketing James Parton...
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t's hard to think of a more disruptive company than Twilio. Its mission is to support ‘do-ers’ who build stuff. And it’s doing it by making it easy to integrate telephony services in apps and software. In 2007 VoIP was transforming the telco space - but not for developers. For those creatives that wanted to build products based on voice or text there was still a huge logistical barrier. Twilio saw that open web tools could create plug-ins to access core telephony services. What used to take months could be done almost instantly with a bit of code and pay as you go prices. Developers can buy as many unique numbers from Twilio as they need. When a number is called or texted, Twilio passes the request to the server to execute whatever code they want. It currently has more than 100,000 developers on its platform. Impressive number. Of course, Twilio relies on developer ingenuity to drive excitement around its core services. Happily for the firm, examples abound. Remember the fuss around group messaging apps last year? Among the hottest was GroupMe, which sold for over $50m to Skype a year after formation.
www.mobile-ent.biz
James Parton will be evangelising for Twilio at a European location near you...
It was powered by Twilio. Since then there have been many more. Stubhub automated ticket confirmation processes between buyers and sellers, while Zendesk used it as the basis of creating a call centre solution that costs 1.6c a minute to use. James Parton is driving Twilio's growth in Europe where it has services in 11 countries. “There are so many applications of the basic technology,” he says. “You can use it to set up anonymous calls for example, which would be useful for dating
sites. You could have a Spotify jukebox in a club and people could text to add tracks to the playlist. You could even place an outbound call from within a customer contact spreadsheet. “And with voice services the real benefit is getting analytics for calls. If you can set up unique numbers for every new campaign, that becomes possible. “I’m really excited to see where our users can take the platform.” Twilio is a Gold Partner of the ME Top 50 Mobile Innovators project.
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2012
Many happy returns? The investment community’s search for high growth companies has never been more intense. And the UK’s smart mobile companies are under careful scrutiny, says Derek Neil, director of corporate finance at BDO…
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espite economic uncertainty, particularly in the Eurozone, private equity and cash-rich corporates keep investing and acquiring. It wasn’t always so. Previously, unsettling market sentiment caused volumes to fluctuate dramatically. But now, the climate is different. Why? Well, as organic growth becomes more challenging, growth by acquisition becomes increasingly important for shareholders seeking higher returns on capital. Companies that conserved cash during the downturn are under pressure to invest cash reserves or face returning funds to shareholders. With a scarcity of suitable high growth targets out there, private equity firms are facing increased competition from corporates who are once again on the hunt for acquisitions. The BDO Private Equity Price Index (a measure of the prices paid for businesses) bears this trend out. It averaged 13.9 over the last 12 months, compared to 11.5 for the previous 12 months. Put simply, buyers are crowding the market and prices are going up. Not surprisingly, one of the areas equity funds and corporate investors are looking at very carefully is mobile. In this sector, rampant 08
BDO’s Derek Neil says the investment space is crowded and it’s looking to spend...
technological change and shifting consumer demands are combining to create a hotbed for M&A activity. This is particularly the case in mobile advertising for example, where there are such high growth prospects for the sector (eMarketer reported in August that the sector will grow 62 per cent this year). Thus, the browser company Opera bought 4th Screen Advertising in February to enrich its proposition to mobile publishers and advertisers, and similar acquisitions are expected to follow. Speculation is rife about where from. Indeed, Facebook was reportedly circling Opera in May to improve its poorly perceived mobile offering.
The UK mobile sector continues to be of great interest to investors, and BDO Corporate Finance is ready to help with advice for purchasers and targets. Our business provides independent financial advice on buying and selling companies, raising finance, IPOs and strategic help on complex reorganisations and shareholder value. We’re delighted to support this year’s ME Top 50. And if any of the winners need some advice, call us – we’d love to talk. BDO is one of the most active advisors in the UK. Its approach is pragmatic and hands-on, which ensures timely, straightforward advice, with deals led by senior personnel. BDO is a silver partner of the ME Top 50 Mobile Innovators project. www.mobile-ent.biz
2012
5app
Adfonic
Admoda/Adultmoda
Sector: Enterprise apps Website: www.5app.co.uk
Sector: Advertising Website: http://adfonic.com
Sector: Advertising Website: www.admoda.com
5app is one of the new breed of enterprise app specialists. Apps are an opportunity for enterprises but also a potential headache. They have to work with security systems, scale across different OSs, do reporting in the right format, not crash a user’s phone, work offline and so on. 5app reckons it’s nailed these. Users are authenticated, so each one only receives the apps they are authorised to run – no app store is required.
Adfonic is now one of the fastestgrowing ad networks in the world. It has offices in London, Madrid, Munich, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Singapore and has emerged as one of the few pannational firms in a highly competitive space. It offers realtime reporting, analytics and postclick metrics to its base of over 15,000 sites and apps. This gives advertisers access to more than 200 million users, and drives over 80 billion quarterly ad requests.
It’s easy to overlook Admoda because it doesn’t make a noise about itself or chase big VC rounds. But the firm has grown without external funding to serve over 26bn ads a month in 231 countries. It has run campaigns by brands such as Xerox, Sky, Artic Vodka and more. Among its innovations was Mobile Redirects, a tool that detects whether the user is on a mobile device and redirects to a mobile site.
Antix
Bardowl
bemoko
Sector: Games Website: www.antixlabs.com
Sector: Audiobooks Website: www.bardowl.com
Sector: Mobile web Website: www.bemoko.com
Antix wants to bring gamers together across different device types using a smart wrapper. In theory, it could link the mobile gamer, the tablet gamer and the smart TV gamer in one seamless lag-free play session. It may be a familiar idea. Antix rose from the ashes of previous attempts to do this. But now the market and the tech is more ready for the concept. The first deal with Telkomsel and MLW Telecom in Indonesia was done this summer.
Bardowl has a proposition anyone can understand: Spotify for audiobooks. Like the Swedish firm, Bardowl streams audio to the device rather than downloads it, and uses local caching to store up to three hours. It charges £9.99 a month for unlimited access to its catalogue. Bardowl launched with a collection of business books, with fiction to follow. Penguin, Macmillan, AudioGo, Wiley, Summersdale and Creative Content are on board.
bemoko has offered a crossplatform web solution since 2007, enabling clients to convert desktop offerings to mobile devices. Customers include Nokia, McDonald’s and Macmillan Cancer Support. In the 12 months up to Christmas 2011, it delivered 43 mobile web projects and this year it expects to double that. Recent enhancements include an ‘internationalisation module’, which allows mobile sites to be created in multiple languages.
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Betable
Blippar
Chelsea Apps Factory
Sector: Gambling Website: https://betable.com
Sector: Augmented reality Website: www.blippar.com
Sector: Enterprise apps Website: www.chelsea-apps.com
Betable is making the most of operating in the UK – possibly the world’s most progressive gambling market. Its simple mission is to enable developers to offer real-money gambling within their apps. Betable is a licensed gambling operator and says it’s streamlined years of legal issues into a simple API that anyone with programming skills can implement. Giants like Zynga are watching the space carefully. No doubt Betable are on the radar.
Let’s admit that the long-term case for AR is still unproven. But in the meantime, credit Blippar for its expert job in popularising the concept and unlocking the budgets of major brands. Its ‘Blipp to Buy’ service merges mcommerce with image recognition and AR, and has been tested by Tesco, ASOS and Aer Lingus. A promo with the Olympics edition of Stylist mag generated 152,000 blipps – an average of 5.8 per reader.
Ex-News International exec Mike Anderson spotted the opportunity for Chelsea Apps Factory when he saw that newspapers kept writing about mobile, but had little idea what to do with the medium. His studio has since made apps for RBS, Vodafone, CNBC and Robert Walters and Deloitte Digital. But it’s really prospered in the enterprise space, building products that sync with the BYOD (bring your own device) trend.
CoreThree
Enrich
Fetch
Sector: M-commerce Website: www.corethree.net
Sector: Marketing/advertising Website: www.enrichmobile.com
Sector: Marketing/advertising Website: wearefetch.com
UK-based Corethree’s big idea is that, rather than build their own payments - enabled apps, partners take a presence on the Core payments app. The ‘Core Engine’ lets end users register their payment card details once and re-use them securely across multiple services. In theory, it means the consumer has one app through which they can order from a range of merchants. It’s working with Cancer Research, Post Office and others.
Enrich is a mobile ad company, but it doesn’t just run banners. Famously it put together the Rovio Samsung promo, which rewarded Angry Birds gamers with a Golden Egg Galaxy level unlocked by visiting a site promoting Samsung products. Users didn’t just engage, many personally ‘thanked’ Samsung for its help with the unlock. Engage says users spent more than 12,800,000 minutes engaging with the Samsung branded level.
Another amazing year for one of the UK’s most dynamic mobile marketing and ad agencies. It is set to quadruple turnover in 2012 thanks to work with clients including Sony Music, Hotels.com and Cancer Research UK. Fetch does the creative but also plans and buys campaigns – making it a genuinely mobile agency. Fetch opened a US office in San Francisco this year.
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2012
Golden Gekko
Grapple
Hailo
Sector: Apps Website: www.goldengekko.com
Sector: Apps Website: www.grapplemobile.co.uk
Sector: Travel/bookings Website: www.hailocab.com
In the last 12 months, Golden Gekko has delivered more than 500 mobile apps and sites for many of the world’s largest brands. It’s a true giant, and it counts among its clients Disney, Duracell, Mango and VW. Golden Gekko also developed O2’s muchhyped Priority Moments local shopping app. It offers a DIY app building platform and templated products tailored for different verticals.
In two years, Grapple has become arguably the most public app maker in the UK (thank you, The Apprentice). It’s built over 200 apps and sites for clients including P&G, Adidas and the Post Office – and gone from five to 85 employees in the process. A stand-out product was the barcode scanner app for Comet that gives access to over 15,000 reviews across 5,000 products. It ended up comprising 20 per cent of Comet e-sales last Christmas.
2012 has been the year of the taxi app. They’re everywhere. But Hailo is without doubt the one to break through. Tap twice on the screen and it shows the nearest cab and how long it will take to arrive. Key to its success was creating a viral trend among black cab drivers, of whom 3,200 signed up in five months. A Hailo cab is booked every minute in London. The firm recently raised $17 million from Accel Partners.
hedgehog lab
Kabbee
Made In Me
Sector: Apps Website: www.hedgehoglab.com
Sector: Transport Website: www.kabbee.com
Sector: e-books Website: www.madeinme.com
Describes itself as a post-PC digital agency specialising in mobile and emerging platforms. This means helping enterprises turn traditional paper-based processes into mobile solutions, while also building mobile experiences for brands ‘that rock’. One such was an acclaimed collaboration with the FT on its ‘Top 1000 World Banks’ app. The Newcastle agency opened a London office in 2012.
Along with fellow Top 50 entrant Hailo, Kabbee has emerged as a breakthrough app in the crowded taxi space. Kabbee is all about mini-cabs. It selected 60 of the best London fleets to provide access to over 4,000 drivers. The app allows comparison of fares and pick-up times before booking, with the option to pre-pay.
Made In Me is one of the UK’s most progressive children’s ebook publishers. It broke through with the Land of Me interactive learning adventure for Ladybird, which was BAFTA nominated. But now it’s readying the ambitious Me Books series. This comprises interactive apps based on favourites like Peter Rabbit, Elmer, Peppa Pig and Charlie & Lola. Children can embellish the stories by recording their own ‘press and play’ dialogue.
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Marmalade
Masabi
Mindshapes
Sector: Games services www.madewithmarmalade.com
Sector: Mobile ticketing Website: www.masabi.com
Sector: Kids’ apps Website: www.mindshapes.com
There’s nothing jammy about Marmalade’s place at the summit of the market for cross-platform app development. Its middleware gives developers a cost-efficient way to ‘develop once, run anywhere’ in a fragmented smartphone market. This year, Version 6.0 brought its crossplatform SDK to makers of HTML5 and hybrid apps – a potentially huge new audience. Games built with Marmalade including Draw Something and Cut the Rope.
Another great year for Masabi and its mission to be the go-to firm for mobile ticketing – and not just in the UK either. Masabi’s mobile barcode or SMS solution works on any phone, and supports apps, back-end servers, payment integration and scanning/validation software for train conductors. It is being used by Virgin Trains, CrossCountry Trains and Chiltern Railways. But this year Masabi sealed its first US deal, with Boston-based MBTA.
Mindshapes was formed by exPlayfish staffers and specialises in apps for pre-schoolers. It won success with the self-developed Jellytoons but is now on an ambitious plan to launch virtual worlds. These include Magic Town, the first online world based on picture book characters from Hachette, Simon & Schuster and Penguin. More ambitious will be Mindshapes’ attempt to revolutionise online language learning with Language City.
M2Cash
Mobicart
Mobile Money Network
Sector: Mobile money Website: www.m2cash.com
Sector: M-commerce Website: www.mobi-cart.com
Sector: M-commerce www.mobilemoneynetwork.com
This London-based start-up has a clear aim – to simplify overseas money exchange using mobile. The M2Cash system sends the recipient of the remittance a mobile ‘virtual card’ that has an eight-digit code. To claim funds, the recipient goes to the nearest M2Cash outlet and enters the virtual card number received, the amount of money to be withdrawn, and a four-digit PIN. The recipient can even redeem funds from an ATM.
Mobicart offers a storefront builder that quickly turns an ecommerce service into a functioning mobile app. It already has over 10,000 merchant sign ups and supports 40 different shopping carts. They now include Zooz, which stores the users’ various payment cards and then gives a simple browsable UI for selecting the designated channel. Developers can integrate the SDK in under ten minutes.
MMN’s mobile checkout app, Simply Tap, lets customers buy a physical product by typing in or scanning a printed code. Customers pre-register their card and delivery so that, from then on, when the code is inputted there are a few clicks to purchase. A year after the soft launch, MMN has been signing ‘real’ deals. In July it won a deal with Associated Newspapers to enable purchases from the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.
www.mobile-ent.biz
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2012
Mopapp
MoPowered
mPowa
Sector: Analytics Website: www.mopapp.com
Sector: M-commerce Website: www.mopowered.co.uk
Sector: M-commerce Website: www.mpowa.com
In an era of freemium content, where apps are hard to discover, a thriving market sector has emerged around analytics. In the UK, Mopapp made a big impact with a platform that provides actionable analytics through an API. Users can track downloads for apps sold through websites, app stores and in-app ads via one dashboard. Developers do not need to install an SDK in their apps to use it. 40,000 app makers have signed up so far.
Mopowered offers a managed service that turns e-commerce into m-commerce with mininal disruption to a merchant’s everyday business. It comprises everything from m-site build and cataloguing to a secure mobile checkout that integrates with existing payment providers. MoPowered is part of Google’s GetMo project to take brands mobile and has clients from small retailers to giants such as Waterstones, HMV and Game.
mPowa is one of the many companies chasing Square, the US firm that turns phones and tablets into cash registers (via an app and a plug-in card-reading dongle). However, mPowa has made more noise than most. Its system supports Chip and PIN and targets SMEs, which it reckons are owed £35.5 billion in the UK alone and take 29.6 days to get paid. mPowa is also looking at white labelling its dongle.
Mubaloo
Natural Motion
Neon Play
Sector: Apps Website: www.mubaloo.com
Sector: Games Website: www.naturalmotion.com
Sector: Games Website: www.neonplay.com
Though founded as recently as 2009, Mubaloo already has offices in New York, Helsinki and Berlin. This is on the strength of building more than 130 consumer and enterprise mobile apps for a range of clients. They include Shake-A-Bet for William Hill, which dramatically re-imagined the UI of the betting app. Then there was the wildly successful location-based AA Fuel Prices. The clue’s in the name.
Oxford-based Natural Motion began life as a maker of middleware for consoles – but it found a second life as an iPhone games publisher, scoring big hits with Backbreaker Football, Jenga and others. It has also had a 10m download success in the freemium space with My Horse. This year Natural Motion raised $11m and added Mitch Lasky – investor and founder of US publisher Jamdat – to its board.
A deserved second year in the Top 50 for the big success story from Cirencester. Neon Play is well known for making Flick Football and Paper Glider, which was the ten billionth App Store download. But this is just one among nearly 40 games that have propelled the studio to international acclaim. Earlier this year Neon Play passed 30 million game downloads. 11 apps have done more than a million. That’s one game download every two seconds.
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Nosy Crow
Paythru
Qriously
Sector: Kids’ apps Website: www.nosycrow.com
Sector: Payments Website: www.paythru.com
Sector: Advertising Website: www.qriously.com
A standard bearer for kids’ apps and ebooks. It’s won awards for its ‘beautiful’ apps, and has been careful to introduce lots of technological enhancements. The most recent is highlighted readalong texts: words turn from black to red in time with the audio reading. The multi-award winning 3D Fairytale apps The Three Little Pigs and Cinderella, and highly acclaimed Bizzy Bear series all carry the new feature.
Paythru operates in a highly complex space, but its proposition is simple: it provides a seamless card payment experience across any mobile device on all networks with every bank in the world. Crucially it’s Level 1 PCI DSS compliant meaning customers don’t need to pre-register or have an e-wallet to transact. Paythru has tailored its service for verticals and is live in games, gambling, sport, charities, money transfer and more.
This summer Qriously presented at ME’s Monetising Mobile conference. The reaction was so warm we decided to include the firm for a second year. Qriously is an ad network that replaces ads with questions. Users get free ‘question-funded’ apps, developers get a rev share and brands get to gauge public sentiment in real-time. In January the firm opened in the US and added two new measurement products, Censio and Tactus.
Ribot
Rippll
Shazam
Sector: Apps/user interface Website: www.ribot.co.uk
Sector: Location-based marketing Website: www.rippll.co
Sector: Music/discovery Website: www.shazam.com
Few companies know more about the psychology of the mobile user interface than Brightonbased Ribot. It has brought its expertise to bear on multiple projects, not least the awardwinning Tesco app, which lets users scan and even speak their selections. It says the app is responsible for one in five shops on Tesco.com. Meanwhile the firm is plugging away at developing a revolutionary 3-button phone UI called Threedom.
Location based mobile marketing is one of the market’s big growth areas and one of the UK’s most talked about participants is Rippll. McDonalds, HMV and TGI Friday’s use the Rippll app platform to help consumers find their nearest stores and receive mobile SMS vouchers based on their location. Rippll also developed the plug and play Geowave analytics solution and the Appsplash platform, which uses templates to help brands get apps to market in two weeks.
Shazam was one of the ‘pure’ mobile brands to break into the mainstream. Its tech initially started off detecting songs, but swiftly expanded to read TV shows and ads. This enabled the firm to partner with mainstream brands such as Pepsi, Sony and the 2012 London Olympics. This summer Shazam notched five billion lifetime tags and revealed its 225 million user base fires up the app ten million times a day.
www.mobile-ent.biz
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2012
Six3
Songkick
Somo
Sector: Video messaging Website: http://six3.tv
Sector: Music Website: www.songkick.com
Sector: Marketing/advertising Website: www.somoglobal.com
Six3 wants to create a messaging service that makes sending video as easy as SMS. Messages can be created and viewed on phones and PCs, with videos capped at 63 seconds. The aim is to fill a gap not served by Skype (too much organising), MMS (unreliable), email (fiddly) and YouTube (too public). It is part of Telefonica’s Wayra accelerator academy and the team includes Simon Frost, former technical architect of the BBC iPlayer.
Live music specialist Songkick has had a remarkable year. It started as an email service providing users with info on concerts. But then its iPhone app was downloaded over 100,000 times in ten days, and the service reached over five million users a month. The app scans music on the phone and bases recommendations on tracks found. Songkick raised $10m this year to fuel hiring and the development of new products.
Another stellar year for Somo saw the London-based marketing agency take its team past 70 and complete campaigns with Glamour, EA, lastminute.com, Thorntons, IGN, Google, Orange and more. It also opened an office in San Francisco. Somo is experimental too, winning praise and awards for its AR-based creative work with Audi, which let users ‘see’ a car in 360 degrees.
Sponge
Stonewash
StrikeAd
Sector: Mobile marketing Website: www.spongegroup.com
Sector: E-books Website: www.stonewash.co.uk
Sector: Advertising Website: www.strikead.com
Sponge is one of the UK’s original mobile agencies, pioneering Text2Win campaigns when they were the height of sophistication. Quietly, the firm re-booted to take account of smartphones and the mobile web. It has delivered over 10,000 campaigns for brands including Coca-Cola, Barclays and AutoTrader, and recently opened offices in Lagos and Nairobi. Its Auto Trader properties now deliver 20m searches from over 2m unique users each month.
Stonewash gives magazine publishers a platform through which to create interactive magazine apps for iOS, Windows 8, BlackBerry and Android. No specialist knowledge is required, so non-tech staff can add video, image galleries, social sharing options and hyperlinking. Over a million Stonewash-built magazine apps have been downloaded to mobiles and tablets. Clients include Fine Cooking, Lusso and Global Insight.
StrikeAd’s platform helps media agencies manage mobile campaigns from multiple advertisers. They get a dashboard through which to buy best performing inventory and filter activity to improve sales. The firm has had a memorable 2012, raising £2m to develop its ‘real time bidding’ platform. This lets clients identify the consumers they want and tweak where their ads appear in real time. Strikead also opened in the US and Asia Pac.
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Swipe Pay
Touchnote
Touchpress
Sector: M-commerce Website: www.swipe-pay.com
Sector: Photography Website: www.touchnote.com
Sector: Educational apps Website: www.touchpress.com
Swipe Pay’s app lets users store card details on their phones. It then displays them in a swipeable menu a bit like album covers on iTunes. When a merchant makes a sale, the purchaser opens the app, and selects the preferred payment option. They click and a QR code is produced. Scanning this code processes the payment. The plan is to make the service available for in-store payments, online transactions, transfers and even ATM withdrawals.
Touchnote has the old-school idea of helping users turn their digital pics into physical postcards to be sent anywhere in the world. It has delivered 2m downloads of its apps. This summer saw two breakthrough developments for the firm. Its Facebook app lets users send cards to friends without knowing their physical addresses. And then there was the free Olympics tie-in with Samsung, which saw more than 750,000 postcards posted.
This London-based publisher seems to have cornered the market in high-end iPad book apps. Examples include The Sonnets by William Shakespeare and The Elements. They might be highbrow, but the latter was lavished with praised and has sold over 300,000. Not bad considering that until mid-June it cost £9.99.
Ubinow
ustwo
Wapple
Sector: Marketing Website: www.ubinow.net
Sector: Apps Website: www.ustwo.co.uk
Sector: Mobile web Website: http://wapple.net
Ubinow enjoyed a fine 12 months, combining its own D2C products with the apps it makes for brands. For Specsavers it developed Eye Test, which lets users test their eyes with their phones. They also did the Cadbury Dance Off app, which makes clothes ‘dance’ to songs in any iTunes collection. It’s linked to the TV ad of the same creative. Ubinow set up the ‘Mobile Creatives’ group to further idea exchange in the app space.
ustwo does highly successful work for third parties but is also brave enough to ringfence some of its profits for its own wildly creative in-house output. These projects vary from the ‘animate your own mouth’ app Mouth-Off to the sumptuous iPad children’s book Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime. Its Whale Trail game sold over 150,000 units. ustwo has even created a unit for making and selling games in 48 hours.
Amazing year for this veteran mobile site specialist, which finally defeated Apple in a trademark infringement case. The pain of fighting the case didn’t stop Wapple from consistently growing a business that offers a DIY platform for small companies to build sites but also works with multinational brands on giant campaigns. Clients include 3, Febreze, Comic Relief and others.
www.mobile-ent.biz
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2012
Yuza Mobile Sector: Apps Website: www.yuzamobile.com One of the most consistently inventive of app developers, anywhere in the world. Yuza began as a specialist in music apps, but has gone on to create some of the most ingenious products the market has seen. They include the Dynamo magic trick app, the CineCam ‘Instagram for video’ app and – the one that turned most heads – Dream:ON, an app that helps people shape the content of their own dreams. Genuinely.
Zeebox Sector: Social/companion apps Website: www.zeebox.com The zeebox service is a ‘sidekick’ app that builds on users’ desire to use their tablet or phone while watching TV. The app is like an alternative EPG that serves up social media feeds and conversations. Consumers use ‘zeetags’ to search the web for more information, read up on characters or actors, purchase music and buy products featured on-screen. Sky formally co-opted it as its ‘second-screen’ consumer service this year.
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Top 50 Mobile Innovators Company A-Z 5app Adfonic Admoda/Adultmoda Antix Bardowl bemoko Betable Blippar Chelsea Apps Factory CoreThree Enrich Fetch Golden Gekko Grapple Hailo hedgehog lab Kabbee Made In Me Marmalade Masabi Mindshapes M2Cash Mobicart Mobile Money Network Mopapp MoPowered mPowa Mubaloo Natural Motion Neon Play Nosy Crow Paythru Qriously Ribot Rippll Shazam Six3 Songkick Somo Sponge Stonewash StrikeAd Swipe Pay Touchnote Touchpress Ubinow ustwo Wapple Yuza Mobile Zeebox
www.5app.co.uk http://adfonic.com www.admoda.com www.antixlabs.com www.bardowl.com www.bemoko.com https://betable.com www.blippar.com www.chelsea-apps.com www.corethree.net www.enrichmobile.com www.wearefetch.com www.goldengekko.com www.grapplemobile.co.uk www.hailocab.com www.hedgehoglab.com www.kabbee.com www.madeinme.com www.madewithmarmalade.com www.masabi.com www.mindshapes.com www.m2cash.com www.mobi-cart.com www.mobilemoneynetwork.com www.mopapp.com www.mopowered.co.uk www.mpowa.com www.mubaloo.com www.naturalmotion.com www.neonplay.com www.nosycrow.com www.paythru.com www.qriously.com www.ribot.co.uk www.rippll.co www.shazam.com http://six3.tv www.songkick.com www.somoglobal.com www.spongegroup.com www.stonewash.co.uk www.strikead.com www.swipe-pay.com www.touchnote.com www.touchpress.com www.ubinow.net www.ustwo.co.uk http://wapple.net www.yuzamobile.com www.zeebox.com www.mobile-ent.biz
Clear your diaries! For the ME Awards 2012 The Mobile Content Industry’s Premier Awards Event THIS YEAR’S CATEGORIES DEVELOPMENT & PUBLISHING Best Gambling Company Best Adult Company Best Games Developer Best Games Publisher Best Branded App Developer Best Enterprise App Developer
Award Partners
SERVICES Best Video Service Provider Best Music Service Provider Best Augmented Reality Company Best Social Games Service Provider Best Games Monetisation Company Best Cross-Platform Tools Provider Best Pay By Mobile Company Best Transactions Company Best Mobile Web Publishing Company Best Advertising Network Best Rich Media Ad Platform Best Marketing Company Best Customer Service Best PR Agency Best Recruitment Agency OPERATORS & HANDSETS Best Device Company Best Operator SPECIAL AWARD Outstanding Contribution to Mobile Content
To buy tickets go to www.me-awards.com/buy-tickets Alternatively contact Katy.Phillips@intentmedia.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1992 535647 For all sponsorship enquiries please contact Katy.Phillips@intentmedia.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1992 535647 www.me-awards.com