Catalyst Mobile, mobile application supplier, raises $10M
Catalyst Mobile, a startup that delivers mobile music and entertainment for large partners like China Mobile, has raised $10 million in funding.
The Emeryville, Calif., company provides a panoply of mobile services, essentially trying to do everything mobile for big companies: Foremost, it offers music download technology, with digital rights management. It offers this directly, but also offers the download technology to companies like Warner Music Japan’s Rhino mobile (see screenshot).
But it also offers playlist recommendations, search and advertising. It supports applications in Flash (some of the company’s founders came from Macromedia) as well as SMS, MMS and Java.
The company has already secured a solid foothold in both Japan and China, having landed numerous partnerships with major handset manufacturers, mobile carriers and content providers in both countries.
Japan is one of the world’s most technologically advanced mobile markets, while China is the world’s largest, with more than half a billion mobile subscribers. Among Catalyst’s other plans, the company tells, is providing mobile services for the Beijing Olympics.Such local partnerships are key to gaining traction in these countries. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, among other companies, are pursuing the same strategy.
Catalyst will use the funding to expand into other parts of Asia and Europe where mobile carriers give independent companies wide-ranging access to their networks.
Sofinnova Ventures and DCM participated in the round.
(Screenshot via 3G.)
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.
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