10.24.05

Location based services

Posted in Technology Ventures at 5:10 am by Ray Wu

Continue on the edge expansion theme, there are more and more location based services (LBS) available in the market place. Since cell phone are more advanced in Europe and Asia, I see more adoption of LBS outside of US. But with the E911 requirement in the states, there is growing interests from VCs to fund LBS companies.

The revenue model comes in from many different sources:

• location-based ads
• vehicle telematics
• subscription mapping services
• business asset tracking etc

Here are some interesting startups:

• Telcontar: software and platform for location based services
  ** VCs: Norwest Venture, Cardinal Venture Capital, Ford Motor, Mobius Venture Capital, WI Harper
• uLocate Communication: location-based services (LBS) focused on the consumer and small-business markets
  ** VCs: GrandBanks Capital, Kodiak Venture Partners
• Wavemarket: location based blogging and alerts
  ** VCs: DFJ, Nokia/Bluerun, Intel, Telecom Italia
• InfoMove: safely deliver personalized information to consumers while in the vehicle
  ** VCs: BSquare, Copan, Encompass Europe, Garage.com, Mitsui Comtek, NTT-ME, The Broe Companies

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