Mobiletrails (United Kingdom) - Dec 2007

unquote
01 December 2007

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Hotbed has invested £2.1m of growth capital in Mobiletrails, a mobile travel information business. The deal sees Hotbed take a substantial minority stake in the company. The investment was introduced to Hotbed by Aegis Corporate Strategy. The investment is eligible for Enterprise Investment Scheme tax relief. Investors were also able to invest via vehicles such as the recently-launched Hotbed Alternative SIPP, which is administered by Alliance Trust Savings Limited.

Company

London-based Mobiletrails was founded in 2000. Its Travel Buddy product provides destination specific information directly to travellers before and during their holidays and allows them to interact via keywords to obtain specific information as and when required. Travel Buddy boasts as its main client the UK’s leading travel business, TUI, which trades principally as Thomson Travel. Travellers can request information by sending one-word texts to Travel Buddy, such as ‘Events’, ‘Weather’, or ‘Restaurants’ and, because the travel company has detailed knowledge of travellers’ itineraries, responses can be specific to time and location. It is estimated that 88% of UK travellers now take their mobile phone abroad with them, and Travel Buddy is available across all mobile service providers in the UK and abroad. Travel Buddy also allows travellers to request football results, news from back home and even download Travel Buddy mobile translator – an application which allows access to more than 200 foreign words and 200 useful phrases from their phone. Travel Buddy enables travel companies to increase their revenues, reduce costs and differentiate their services by communicating with customers before and while they are away. In less than two years of operation, Travel Buddy has signed contracts with TUI, Holidays4U, Mid- Counties Co-op and The Holiday Place. Travel Buddy generates revenues by charging a monthly fee to travel companies as well as by charging per text sent. Their contact base of travellers is also predicted to be valuable to companies ranging from travel insurance to car hire, which they are expected to profit from as part of future expansion plans. Mobiletrails employs five staff and recorded a sub-£1m turnover in 2006/07.

People

Tim Lawrence led the deal for Hotbed.

Advisers

Equity - Aegis Corp Strategy, Hazel Hutchinson (Corporate Finance)Equity - EMW Law, Simon Arkell (Legal)Management - Mundays, (Legal)

Sourced from: UK & Ireland unquote" 359 (Dec 2007)