Motricity

Motricity, Inc.

Type	Public (NASDAQ: MOTR)
Founded	2001
Founder(s)	Ryan Weurch
Headquarters	Bellevue, Washington, USA
Key people	Ryan Weurch (Chairman and CEO)
Services	Mobile Portal Services
Website	www.motricity.com

Motricity was formed in 2001 by Ryan Wuerch to provide integrated mobile content solutions for handheld and mobile devices. Originally formed as PowerByHand, the company changed its name to Motricity in October 2004 after its merger with Pinpoint Networks. The name Motricity is a portmanteau of the words mobile and electricity.

The company currently has over 300 employees and is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, with offices in Morrisville, North Carolina and London.

Corporate history

In 2001, Wuerch founded PowerByHand, a company that provides content, information and education for hand-held and mobile devices. PowerByHand acquired a number of commercial Internet companies, including PalmGear.com in October 2002, eReader.com in September 2003, and PocketGear.com, and Smartphone.net in March 2004.

In April 2004, PowerByHand merged with Pinpoint Networks, a provider of software and services for the management and delivery of mobile data services.

In October 2004, the company changed its name to Motricity and announced the acquisition of Mobile2Day.de, a European mobile content portal.

Motricity later sold off these acquired units, with the smartphone applications business going to the newly created Pocketgear, Inc. in June, 2008^[1], to focus the company on mobile content delivery services.

Private Funding

• USD$27 million in July 2004, led by Silicon Valley-based Technology Crossover Ventures;
• USD$30 million in July 2005, from Chicago–based Advanced Equities Inc., as well as such existing investors as Technology Crossover Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and Intel Capital;
• $40 million in April 2006, led by Advanced Equities Inc., with participation from other existing investors, including New Enterprise Associates and Technology Crossover Ventures;
• USD$32 million in August 2006, led by Advanced Equities Inc., with participation from other existing investors.

These rounds raised the company's total funding to over USD$150 million, one of the largest amounts of capital ever raised by a private company in North Carolina.

Additional funding came from Carl Icahn in the form of USD$50 million in March 2007 and another USD$50 million in October of that same year. This last was part of a USD$185 million round of funding. Advanced Equities Inc. raised its investment by another USD$100 million, adding to its USD$50 million already invested.

The total raised by this point in time was reported to be USD$405 million.

Acquisition of InfoSpace Mobile Division and Future Direction

The October 2007 round of funding was used in large part to finance the January 2008 acquisition of the mobile division of Seattle based Infospace for a reported USD$135 million^[2]. The initial strategy of the company was to leverage the Fuel storefront solution with the newly acquired mCore mobile portal solution to present a total solution for mobile providers.^{[citation needed]}

Shortly after the InfoSpace acquisition was completed, Motricity found that the mCore storefront acquired from InfoSpace was more technically appealing, and decided to move forward with that solution.^{[citation needed]} This was followed shortly by the announcement that 250 employees based in Durham would be laid-off, and the corporate headquarters moved to Bellevue, WA, leaving approximately 100 employees remaining in Durham^[3].

IPO

On January 22, 2010 the company filed for a $250 million IPO^[4]. The company went public on June 18, 2010, offering 6,000,000 shares at US$10 per share^[5].

References

1. ^ "Motricity Co-Founder Launches New Venture, PocketGear". BusinessWire. 2008-06-04. http://www.businesswire.com/news/google/20080604005431/en. Retrieved 2008-09-02. 
2. ^ Wolf, Alan (2007-10-15). "Motricity to buy InfoSpace unit for $135 million". The News & Observer. http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/737571.html. Retrieved 2008-09-02. ^{[dead link]}
3. ^ Norton, Frank (2008-03-04). "Motricity to slash 250 jobs, move headquarters". The News & Observer. http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/980542.html. Retrieved 2008-09-02. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ Kincaid, Jason (2010-01-22). "Mobile Tech Developer Motricity Files For $250 Million IPO". TechCrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/22/motricity-ipo. Retrieved 2010-01-24. 
5. ^ Pimentel, Benjamin (2010-06-18). "Motricity shares fall in IPO despite reduced price range". MarketWatch. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/motricity-shares-fall-in-ipo-2010-06-18. Retrieved 2010-07-29. 

External links

• Official website