Bluepulse Launches U.S. Operations; Raises $6 Million in Funding From VantagePoint Venture Partners

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bluepulse, a pioneer in mobile social networking, today announced a series of major milestones in the company’s growth and development. Highlights include expanding into the North American market, with new headquarters in the former YouTube offices in Silicon Valley; raising $6 million in funding from VantagePoint Venture Partners; and announcing rapid global growth of its beta product.

“We are excited to be investors in a company with such an innovative and global vision for the future of the Mobile Web.”

In a recent report, market analysis firm Juniper Research forecast mobile operator revenues from user-generated content will increase tenfold over the next five years, rising from $576 million in 2007 to $5.74 billion by 2012. According to Juniper, social networking services will account for 50 percent of that total, with the number of active mobile social network subscribers accelerating from 14 million in 2007 to 600 million in 2012.

“To date, bluepulse has built a unique platform that enables friends, co-workers, acquaintances and family members to stay connected, share content and access widgets with their most personal device – the mobile phone,” said Ben Keighran, Founder and CEO of bluepulse. “As mobile social networking becomes even more integral to mobile users’ daily routines, we look forward to continuing to make bluepulse the mobile social networking hub. Over the next several months we will introduce exciting new functionality that empowers people to do even more on their handsets via bluepulse.” Keighran, 25, founded bluepulse in 2002 in his native Australia.

Within one application, bluepulse enables users to communicate and meet new people through one-to-one and broadcast messaging, profiles, picture and video sharing, chat and a wide range of mobile widgets. To get bluepulse, anybody in the world with a data plan can type “bluepulse.com” into their phone’s browser and download the application for free. They can then immediately build their profile, invite friends to join, make new friends, message and share media with other bluepulse users. Since the company’s beta release in December 2006, bluepulse has been downloaded more than two million times across 150+ countries. Bluepulse is one of the fastest growing mobile social networking communities in the world, due in part to the fact that it works on more handsets than any other application the company is aware of.

“Bluepulse has undoubtedly developed one of the most compelling social networking platforms for mobile. Because the app has been built for the handset from the ground up, it offers a mobile-specific social networking experience, rather than a pared down Web experience on a phone,” said Eric Ver Ploeg, Managing Director at VantagePoint Venture Partners. “We are excited to be investors in a company with such an innovative and global vision for the future of the Mobile Web.”

Highlights

Market Expansion – Bluepulse has re-located its headquarters from Sydney, Australia to North America. The company is now operating out of YouTube’s former offices in downtown San Mateo, Calif. Relocating to the heart of Silicon Valley puts bluepulse in close proximity to its strategic partners, customers and stakeholders.
Funding – Bluepulse recently closed a series A round of financing from VantagePoint Venture Partners. With more than $5 billion of assets under management and extraordinary depth of experience, VantagePoint partners with entrepreneurs in the CleanTech, Healthcare and Technology, and Mobile Web sectors.
Growth – Since launching its pioneering beta version last December, bluepulse has experienced significant growth and is potentially the fastest growing mobile social network in the world. Closing in on 100 million page views per month and adding thousands of new users each day, the company is well positioned to be the major player in the mobile social networking space.

About Bluepulse

Bluepulse is a privately held mobile social media company based in San Mateo, California that is busy building one of the world’s largest communities on the Mobile Web. In December 2006, bluepulse launched its game-changing social networking application that works on most Internet-enabled phones around the world – approximately one billion handsets. What started out as founder Ben Keighran’s hobby has evolved into a global social networking utility for mobile users. Bluepulse is built on an open platform that gives its users multiple means of communication, content sharing, widget functionality, and so much more – all in a single application. Bluepulse has users in more than 150 countries and is one of the fastest growing mobile communities in the world. Bluepulse has an advertising-based revenue model.