24. August 2009
SMS Guru sucessfully closes second round financing
Berlin 24/08/09 – SMS Guru GmbH receives fresh capital: The VC fund Kreativwirtschaft from the IBB Berlin and VC company Wellington Partners support the strong growth of SMS Guru.
During the first finance round Wellington Partners and other strategic busines angels invested in the start-up company. The positive development of the business and the excellent growth prospects meant that IBB could be easily convinced to invest in the concept of the knowledge company.
„The highly experienced SMS Guru team has already proven that the SMS answers are very popular with its target group. The new finance round has created opportunities to further grow the service in Germany and roll it out internationally“, says Mischa Wetzel, investment manager at IBB.
SMS Guru GmbH answers questions of all kinds. Mobile phone users simply send their questions via text message to the 37000 short code. Their motto is: There is an answer to every question and therefore every question received will be researched by a team of experts and answered by real people within a few moments.
„ Our success story so far has made it rather easy to get the necessary growth capital“ says Frederik Fleck, founder and chairman of SMS Guru. „We now have excellent resources to improve our technology and to expand our market leadership.“
The team working with CEO Christian Vennemann concentrates on developing strategic partnerships with TV stations and other media companies. „We would like to continue the work that we have done in Germany and also use our knowledge in other European markets. We see great potential in the B2C segment as well as in the creation of white label solution for third party companies.“
Behind SMS Guru is a small but strong team which is based in Berlin and an extensive network of experts called the ‚Gurus’. We have real research champions here at SMS Guru They are experts in using the numerous knowledge bases and can express their results in a very precise way“, explains Frederik Fleck.
Corporate Finance Partners advised SMS Guru throughout this finance round. (www.cfpartners.com)
About SMS Guru
SMS Guru is the first information service via SMS in the German speaking world. SMS Guru customers can send any question they can think of to the 37000 short code and will receive a personal and individual answer within a few moments. The core team of the SMS Guru GmbH is based in Berlin Kreuzberg. From their a small team coordinates a large and decentralized network of experts who are in charge of answering the incoming questions. A growing data base of question and answer pairings results in a unique matching technology which ensures optimal quality and response times.
Contact details:
SMS Guru GmbH
Christian Vennemann
Schlesische Str. 26
10997 Berlin
Phone.: +49 (0) 30 31 98 70 882
Fax: +40 (0) 30 31 98 70 881
Email: christian.vennemann(at)smsguru.de
Web: www.smsguru.de
About IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH
The IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH (www.ibb-bet.de) has been managing the VC fund Berlin and since December 2007 VC fund Technology Berlin as well as VC fund Kreativwirtschaft Berlin. The three VC funds are financed by capital from the IBB Berlin and the European funds for regional development (EFRE) which is managed by the city of Berlin. Since 1997 the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH Berliner Kreativ- und Technologieunternehmen together with their partners have provided over €600m of which IBB contributed around €77m as a lead, co- lead or co-investor.
Contact details:
IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH
Mischa Wetzel
Bundesallee 171
10715 Berlin
Phone.: +49 (0) 30 2125 3201
Fax: +49 (0) 30 2125 3202
Email: venture(at)ibb-bet.de
Web: www.ibb-bet.de
About Wellington Partners
Since 1998, Wellington Partners has invested in more than 100 companies in Europe and Israel, including now publicly traded Actelion, SAF and XING and successful privately held companies like Alando (acquired by eBay), Ciao (acquired by Microsoft) and ImmobilienScout24 (acquired by Deutsche Telekom). For more information please visit www.wellington-partners.com.
Contact details:
Wellington Partners
Stefan Schwartz
Theresienstr. 6
80333 München
Phone: +49 (0) 89 2199 4129
Email: schwartz(at)wellington-partners.com