Interview: SendMe Mobile Raises Another $12M

SendMe Mobile is announcing today that it has raised a $12 million series D round of funding. The total amount of funding for this mobile company has not been disclosed, but its series C round a year ago amounted to $15 million and the funds raised have enabled SendMe Mobile to pursue a great deal of development and product releases, as well as the acquisition of mbuzzy for the expansion of its network.

Below is an excerpt of an interview with SendMe’s CEO and co-founder, Russell Klein. He speaks on the current focus of the company as well as the upcoming plans for putting this latest round to work.

Kristen Nicole of Social Times: As a mobile company, what is your focus?

Russell Klein of SendMe: SendMe Mobile is 100% dedicated to the “direct to consumer” sector of the wireless entertainment ecosystem. At the company core, SendMe runs a series of our own brands, all built off our core proprietary platform. It’s all geared towards creating engaging experiences for the target demo of first-time cell phone owners to recent college grads and oftentimes leverages premium SMS as the billing model of choice. At our heart, we consider ourselves to be building the “Viacom of the web to mobile industry” by focusing on creating a series of owned and operated brands that are built off the SendMe core technology platform, that cater to a tightly-defined demographic.

Kristen Nicole: With three separate mobile services under the SendMeMobile umbrella, what has been your biggest seller?

Russell Klein: SendMe’s first three brands include the following:

· SendMeMobile.com was our first flagship brand to be exclusively built and launched off our core technology. Over the last two years SendMe Mobile has grown extremely rapidly to include one of the largest fully-licensed catalogs of mobile-ready content in the US, offered on a subscription basis to subscribers off-deck thru premium SMS billing. With content partners ranging from film studios like Sony Pictures to nearly all of the top music labels (ex: Universal, Warner Music, EMI, The Orchard, and IODA), to niche branded game and wallpaper providers, SendMe’s aim is to continue building the leading destination site for mobile personalization that leverages the benefits and security of premium SMS.

· SoLow.com was the next site to be launched from our core platform. SoLow focuses on a similar demographic to its sister site SendMeMobile.com but offers subscribers the opportunity to win unique, experiential prizes while playing engaging, addictive games both online as well as on mobile via SMS. Similar to SendMeMobile.com, SoLow is a subscription club which leverages premium SMS billing, and also like SendMeMobile.com, the site has experienced dramatic growth over the last two years.

· mBuzzy was the newest addition to the SendMe Mobile family through an acquisition which we completed at the end of 2007. mBuzzy is a completely free destination site with a highly engaged, loyal user base. Through mbuzzy, subscribers can create their own mobile wallpapers and videos and share them with other users. Users can also meet and communicate with other users through our WAP-based chat rooms and instant messaging services. With over 1mm users and 100mm page views per month, mBuzzy has become a leading destination site for self-expression and user-to-user communication on mobile.

Kristen Nicole: Have you seen a change in the use of your products or its spread as a result of devices like the iPhone and its competitors?

Russell Klein: The proliferation of smarter devices with better, more intuitive UIs, larger screens, and much greater processing power, has made it that much easier for users to subscribe to services such as the ones that we provide. That said, our services are available on nearly any device, on nearly any carrier in the US.

Kristen Nicole: What will you be doing with the series D round of financing?

Russell Klein: A portion will be used for general working capital, while we’ll also be on the lookout for some opportunities to augment our organic growth through targeted buyside acquisitions.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.