SAN RAFAEL, CA--(Marketwire - October 4, 2010) - ClairMail, Inc., the leader in mobile banking and payments solutions, today announced a $13.8 million late stage round of funding led by Investor Growth Capital (IGC), the wholly owned venture capital arm of Stockholm-based Investor AB. Existing investors JAFCO Ventures, Northwest Venture Partners and Outlook Ventures also participated in the round. ClairMail will use the financing to grow its technology infrastructure and service capabilities to meet the growing demand for mobile financial services.
IGC, known for investments in growth-stage technology companies across emerging markets, is the latest strategic partner to join ClairMail's investor portfolio. This financing follows ClairMail's successive quarters of record revenue growth, including its recently announced 300 percent year-over-year increase in revenue for the second quarter ending June 2010. The company's Financial Institution (FI) customers, now include eight of the top 12 North American banks.
"As a global investor, we have been actively monitoring the mobile banking and payments industry as financial institutions around the world realize that mobile is the strategic channel of the future. ClairMail has demonstrated rapid growth in North America and a greater footprint across international markets," said Philip R. Dur, Managing Director at Investor Growth Capital. "ClairMail's best-of-breed mobile banking and payments platform, and expert management team uniquely positions the company to capture strong market share as adoption in mobile financial continues to mature."
The investment highlights the growing demand among FI's for a mobile banking and payments platform that will meet the evolving needs of their customers. The industry has seen skyrocketing adoption, growth and opportunity in the past year. Data released by comScore showed that 13.2 million people accessed their bank accounts from their phones during the month of April 2010 -- a 70 percent increase from one year ago -- and IDC Financial Insights recently reported that mobile banking usage has almost doubled over the past year. Accordingly, internal ClairMail research projects that 46 percent of the top 600 banks are planning to purchase or implement mobile banking strategies in 2010.
"Adding IGC to our portfolio of investors gives us a strong competitive advantage as we continue to build powerful infrastructure that supports our financial institution customers," said ClairMail CEO Pete Daffern. "We remain committed to providing the best technology and services to power the adoption of mobile banking and payments. This capital will enable us to invest in key areas of our business, further strengthening our leadership position in the mobile financial services market."
The ClairMail mobile banking solution processes millions of transactions per month for its customers across retail banks, credit unions and card service companies -- providing consumers with easy access to their accounts via multiple modes, including SMS, mobile web and client application, on virtually any mobile device.
About Investor Growth Capital
Investor Growth Capital is the wholly owned venture capital arm of Investor AB (Investor), the largest publicly listed industrial holding company in the Nordic region. Investor was founded in 1916, and is traded on the Stockholm exchange. Since its formation in the mid-1990s, Investor Growth Capital has invested in high-quality, growth-oriented companies, primarily in the information technology and healthcare industries, in North America, Northern Europe, and China. For more information, please see: www.investorgrowthcapital.com.
About ClairMail
ClairMail is the leading provider of mobile solutions for banking, payment and card services. ClairMail provides a technology platform designed to help financial institutions realize the strategic potential of mobile banking, driving new levels of customer trust and loyalty, facilitating cross-sell opportunities and enabling near term, measurable cost savings. Financial institutions of all sizes now have an opportunity to reach 100% of their customer base and proactively deliver personalized content through multi-level alerting and triple-play convergence capabilities via a central customer interface. ClairMail's platform also offers multi-channel enrollment options to maximize mobile adoption and ROI, regardless of mobile device, carrier or back-end financial system. Founded in 2004, ClairMail is headquartered in San Rafael, Calif. For more information call (415) 884-7270 or visit www.clairmail.com.
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