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ItsOn Secures $15.5M in Series B

2012-10-30
REDWOOD CITY, CA, Leader in smart mobile services, today announced it has secured $15.5 million in Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.
ItsOn, Inc., the leader in smart mobile services, today announced it has secured $15.5 million in Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz along with SV Angel and an investor group led by Jim Davidson. ItsOn is introducing a new way for mobile services to be delivered, purchased and consumed by consumers and businesses. The company is building direct-to-consumer services and cloud-based solutions that will serve the needs of both mobile service and content providers in ways never before seen. ItsOn is co-founded by wireless and networking industry pioneers Dr. Greg Raleigh and Charles Giancarlo.

The smartphone is the central consumer product of our time. It will continue to drive explosive growth of data demand for the next decade. Meanwhile, service plans and the underlying network technology are still rooted in the voice-only era, forcing 'one-size-fits-all' antiquated service plans into the hands of consumers. ItsOn is bringing radical change to the $1 trillion global mobile services market. With ItsOn, consumers and businesses will finally have access to a fully customized service experience that is uniquely suited for their needs, and is optimized for the way they interact with their entire mobile world.

"As the feature phone goes by the wayside, a new level of personal connectivity is becoming central to our identity in the form of the smartphone. But mobile service plans are not keeping up," said Marc Andreessen, co-founder and partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "ItsOn addresses a universal problem that has never been solved. It is the ultimate usage based model of the future. The company's cloud-based technology is the leap forward needed to unlock the next wave of growth and financial opportunity in mobile. We believe ItsOn is about to change this industry."

Building a Better Mobile Business with ItsOn

ItsOn's cloud-based platform offers complete flexibility and real-time service customization features for both mobile operators and service providers. Businesses will be able to provide services targeted to specific user demographics and device types with minimal development time or market risk. With ItsOn, go-to-market times for these service deployments are days vs. years. ItsOn mobile partners will strengthen brand awareness, improve targeted app placement and their app service sponsorship. Examples include a snack food maker's sponsorship of streaming for a sporting event, free social networking with voice services, sponsored news services, and sponsored online shopping with mobile service credits for loyalty shoppers.

"ItsOn provides 3G and 4G wireless consumers and enterprise business managers with complete, real-time visibility and control over their voice, text and more importantly, data usage. Mobile service consumers are finally empowered to choose exactly which mobile services they need and how much they want to spend-eliminating over-charging and bill shock," said ItsOn founder, chairman and CEO Dr. Greg Raleigh. "Consumers can select, monitor, control and share all of their mobile services as they wish, instantly from their phone, tablet or PC without the inconvenience of talking to a sales associate, calling a support center or logging into a website. People will be able to take any ItsOn enabled device out of the box and simply start using whatever services they desire."

The smartphone era has created a data explosion, which existing mobile networks are not prepared to handle. The ItsOn platform eliminates the misalignment between escalating data costs for network operators and their revenue, through cost transparency and by putting consumers in complete control of tailored mobile services. This will drive profitable, scalable and attractive mobile operator and MVNO business models, which will keep pace with the growing appetite for mobile data now and into the future.

ItsOn Takes on Mobile Industry with Team of Pioneers in Innovation

The ItsOn team is stacked and seasoned, many responsible for some of the most significant wireless innovations introduced over the past decade. With this funding, Marc Andreessen will become an active advisor to the company. ItsOn board member, Jim Straight, is the former head of all of Verizon's wireless and wireline consumer services. ItsOn co-founders, Raleigh and Charles Giancarlo, are also accomplished entrepreneurs and leaders:

--Raleigh invented and commercialized 4G "MIMO" wireless technology and the newest Wi-Fi technology; led the creation and launch of the Qualcomm Gobi global mobile internet product line; founded Clarity Wireless (acquired by Cisco Systems), and Airgo Networks (acquired by Qualcomm).
--Giancarlo has founded several influential networking technology companies, led Cisco's overall product development and management activities for a decade, and has served on the boards of Skype, Accenture and Netflix. Giancarlo serves on the ItsOn Board of Directors.

"Just as the Internet revolution resulted in the migration of intelligence from the network core to the edge of wired networks, ItsOn is now enabling the massive, untapped intelligence in smart mobile devices to offer more choice and control for consumers of their mobile services," said Charles Giancarlo, co-founder of ItsOn. "The ItsOn platform decreases network cost, increases network flexibility and puts power into the hands of the consumer. ItsOn is a breakthrough that inverts the entire centralized mobile network paradigm and revolutionizes what people around the world will now be able to do with their mobile connectivity."

ItsOn has been in stealth since 2008. ItsOn-enabled mobile services will be available to consumers and businesses in the US and globally starting next year. Previous ItsOn investors include Vodafone Ventures and Verizon Investments.

About ItsOn

ItsOn was formed by world leading pioneers in the wireless field to fundamentally change how mobile services are delivered and consumed. ItsOn created the Smart Services™ revolution four years ago. The company is privately-held and headquartered in Redwood City. For more information, please visit: www.itsoninc.com or follow @OnItsOn on Twitter.

About Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz is a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that provides seed, venture and growth€stage funding to the best new technology companies. Founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz specializes in helping entrepreneurs become successful CEOs and build important and enduring companies. Its investing partners are Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, John O'Farrell, Scott Weiss, Jeff Jordan and Peter Levine, all widely recognized experts in the creation, scaling and operation of high growth technology companies. The firm has $2.7 billion under management. The firm's investments include Airbnb, Apptio, Box, Fab, Facebook, Foursquare, Github, Jawbone, Jumio, Lookout, Lytro, Pinterest, Twitter, and Udacity. The firm was established in June 2009 and is located in Menlo Park, California. www.a16z.com
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