Mobile marketing firm 5th Finger gets $7M

5th Finger, a mobile marketing company that helps clients send out promotions, sweepstakes and other incentive-based forms of marketing and advertising, has raised $7 million from Starfish Ventures. The Australian company launched in 1999 and became the country's mobile marketing leader a few years later, before being bought and merged into a joint venture by Microsoft and Australian media company PBL Ltd. -- that it was more recently spun out of. Independent again, the company received angel backing and moved to San Francisco earlier this year. It is aiming to hit profitability by next year, according to VentureWire (subscription required).

Current clients include MSN Mobile, Nike, New Line Cinema and Amazon; it is also working with ad firms Avenue A|Razorfish, Grey, and Cadient. More on MediaPost.