Axel Technologies (Finland) - Jan 2008

unquote
01 January 2008

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Axel Technologies, a developer of mobile TV technologies, has attracted financing from Nexit Ventures and existing investor Finnish Industry Investments Ltd. Nexit Ventures injected €1.1m in this round to finance the company’s development costs for the coming 12 months. The venture firm is looking to increase financial support depending on the business’ strategic moves going forward.

The new investment will be used to strengthen the firm’s organisation and internationalisation, with emphasis on sales, marketing and customer support efforts. General partner Pekka Salonoja, was familiar with the company from his previous experience at Nokia. Nexit Ventures has been keen to invest for some time, but felt the timing was right due to the business’ increased focus on mobile TV technologies. The investor regards this technology to be the ‘next big thing’ within the mobile segment. A decision to invest was also supported by the scheduled European launch of the first digital mobile TV services based on DVB-H, the global standard for mobile and IP datacast. The number of mobile phones supporting DVB-H is expected to increase rapidly and 60 million are due to be sold in 2010. Manufacturers have therefore started to develop mobile phones with hardware and software that enable Axel’s mobile TV technology.

Company

Axel Technologies is a Finnish software company focusing on mobile TV development based on two different technologies; 3G based services and DVB-H based services. The business’ flagship product, Salmonstream Mobile, enables the implementation for full digital TV services based on DVB-H. The company builds user interface software that supports several digital interfaces. The company was founded in 2003 when it completed a MBO from a Finnish advertising firm to fully focus on its mobile technology. The business is based in Turku and has around 20 employees.

People

Nexit Ventures’ general partners Pekka Salonoja and Artturi Tarjanne worked on the deal. Salonoja is the chairman of the board. Petri Kalske is the CEO of Axel Technologies.

Advisers

Equity - Castrén & Snellman Attorneys Ltd., (Legal)Equity - KPMG, (Financial Due Diligence)

Sourced from: Nordic unquote" 71 (Feb 2008)