Strategic investors focus on high market growth and opportunity for mobile location-based services.
In addition to a previously announced investment from T-Mobile Venture Fund (announced June 10, 2008), deCarta received investments from two other strategic investors who have not been named. The Company anticipates announcing the strategic investors at a later date. International venture capital firms Hotung Group and TransLink Capital, as well as existing investor Norwest Venture Partners, also participated in the round. deCarta's relationship with Hotung and TransLink provides a unique window to mobile LBS business development opportunities in Asia.
"This is an important round for deCarta as it not only provides capital to meet the needs of the expanding market, but also brings us closer to several highly strategic partners," said J. Kim Fennell, President and CEO of deCarta. "The participation of these corporate investors in this round of financing underscores the growing opportunity that location-enabled mobile applications and services represent, and moreover, is a strong endorsement of the pivotal role deCarta plays in enabling the mobile LBS environment."
About Hotung Group
Hotung Group ("Hotung") was established in 1987. The founding shareholders include Tai Lung Capital, DaiWa Securities, now NIF SMBC Ventures Co., Chiatung Bank, now Mega International Financial Holding Corp. and Feng Tay Enterprise, etc.
After 20 years' successful investments and proven track record, Hotung has evolved and become one of the top venture capital firms in Taiwan with over $350M under management. More than 130 companies in our portfolio went public in Asia and USA. Over time, Hotung Group has invested in more than 460 companies worldwide, of which more than 90 are in the US. This network is a very important resource for our value-adds and future investments. Hotung has since returned more than $600M capital to its fund investors.
Hotung currently has offices in Taipei, Shanghai and Silicon Valley with over 30 seasoned professionals handling cross-Pacific and local investments. We also have strategic partners in the US, Japan, Korea, Germany and China. Collectively, our team has 200 years of experience in securities, private equity and venture capital business. Hotung's US investments started in the early 1990s. In 2002 we set up an office in the heart of Silicon Valley. We have since become one of the leading Asian VCs to invest in cutting-edge technologies in the Bay Area and the rest of North America. Significant exits include: AATI, Infinera, Airespace/Cisco, Resonext/RFMD, Cicada/Vitesse, Berkana/Qualcomm, Opnext, and Rasvia/Quanta, just to name a few. We are interested in the semiconductor, telecommunication, and software space where we can provide most of our added values. We also welcome deals in the area of alternative energy, cleantech, medical devices, and so on. For more information; http://www.hotung.com.tw/eng/home.htm.
About Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a global venture capital firm that has actively partnered with entrepreneurs to build great businesses for more than 45 years. NVP focuses on investments in information technology including: software, services, enterprise and communications systems, semiconductor/ components and Internet, media and consumer. The firm currently manages more than $2.5 billion in venture capital out of its office in Palo Alto, California. Managing Partner Promod Haque has been ranked as a top dealmaker on the annual Forbes Midas List for the past three years. In 2004, Forbes named him as the #1 venture capitalist worldwide based on performance over the last decade.
NVP has funded over 450 companies in the U.S. since inception, as well as several direct investments in India and more than 20 cross border companies. Some of the firm's recent investments and transactions include Adventity, Airespace (acquired by Cisco Systems), deCarta, KACE, mBlox, Omneon, Open-Silicon (acquired by Unicorn Investment Bank), Persistent Systems, Rackspace, Resonext Communications (acquired by RF Micro Devices), SideStep (acquired by Kayak), Spinnaker Networks (acquired by Network Appliance), Veraz Networks, Winphoria Networks (acquired by Motorola) Yatra, and Yipes (acquired by Reliance/Flag Telecom). NVP has also funded such market leaders as Actel Corporation, Cerent (acquired by Cisco Systems), Documentum, Extreme Networks, Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), PeopleSoft and Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM). For more information, please visit http://www.nvp.com.
About T-Mobile Venture Fund
The T-Mobile Venture Fund is managed by T-Venture, the venture capital entity of Deutsche Telekom. The activities of the T-Mobile Venture Fund provide T-Mobile with an innovative edge and strong commercial synergies. T-Mobile International is one of the world's leading companies in mobile communications. As one of Deutsche Telekom's three strategic business units, T-Mobile concentrates on the most dynamic markets in Europe and the United States. For more information about T-Venture and the T-Mobile Venture Fund, please visit http://www.t-venture.com.
About TransLink Capital
TransLink Capital is a Palo Alto-based venture capital fund focused on early expansion stage startups in mobile, communications, and digital media. The TransLink team consists of experienced investors with deep connections with many of the leading early adopter customers in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Our investment strategy is to partner with top-tier VC firms on high-profile early-stage companies where we can demonstrate our value add by successfully closing Asian strategic partnerships and investing the subsequent rounds. For more information about TransLink Capital, please visit http://www.translinkcapital.com.
About deCarta
deCarta is the leading geospatial software platform that has enabled some of the industry's most successful Location-Based Services (LBS) applications such as those deployed by Verizon, Sprint Nextel, AT&T, T-Mobile, Multimap and Hotels.com. The company's technology is ideal for high-volume LBS applications in the mobile, personal navigation, connected navigation, enterprise and Internet markets where scalability, speed and reliability are vital. deCarta's solutions are preferred by application developers and service providers who seek to leverage deCarta's unique core strengths of server-side and wireless LBS expertise, and also want the flexibility to customize map styles and self-brand. Some of deCarta's customers and technology partners include Appello, ATX, AutoTrader.com, Gearworks, Hotels.com, INRIX, Local Matters, Loopt, Maps.com, Motorola, Multimap, NAVTEQ, Networks In Motion, Tele Atlas, TeleNav and WHERE. deCarta is privately held and headquartered in San Jose, California with international offices in the UK, Germany and China. http://www.decarta.com.
Web site:
http://www.decarta.com/
http://www.nvp.com/
http://www.t-venture.com/
http://www.translinkcapital.com/
