 |
|
|
Voxline gets 3TS investment Miklos Nyiri Mobile Internet software developer Voxline Kft last week announced it had raised E1.8 million through 3TS Venture Partners, the investment advisor to the E66 million Technologieholding Central and Eastern European Funds. Voxline was launched last year to develop software to allow users of WAP-enabled mobile phones to personalize and read the contents of any Internet site. 3TS Country Manager Laszlo Hradszki said Voxline's software offered solutions to real challenges in the mobile telephony market. "It is also important to emphasize that the mobile market is currently the fastest growing telecom segment," he added. Sandor Fejes, chairman and CEO of Voxline, said the company expects to grow to 25-30 employees from its current 10. Based in Szeged, Voxline also has offices in Budapest and Belleville, New Jersey. He said the company will spend the next six months intensively developing its product family. The investment will help fund operations over the next period, Fejes said, while declining to say what the firm's expected turnover would be for 2001. "We consider ourselves a battering ram in this market," Fejes said, adding that existing players in the mobile Internet market might not willingly accept new solutions. Since its first investment last June, 3TS has closed seven deals in the region, including investments in E-Group Rt, Laserbit Kft, Paymentor and CV-Online. The investments ranged from E1 million to E2.65 million. "Three other investments are under preparation at the moment," Hradszki said, adding that 3TS expects to help Technologieholding fund an increasing number of companies. "We are not [afraid of] Internet ventures, even if they are content providers, we just want to make sure that [the company] has growth potential and a sound business plan," he said. 3TS Venture Partners is a joint venture of 3i Technologieholding VC GmbH, a leading German VC firm, and SITRA, the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development. 3i, which owns 3i Technologieholding, manages over E2 billion, while SITRA has over E1 billion in funds under management. 3TS has offices in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw.
|