Rightware is really a spin-off from Futuremark that was just founded at the end of 2009. At the same time the company announced the deal with Futuremark, they announced a closing of a €3m investment from Inventure and Nexit Ventures.
With the funding, Rightware will accelerate development and marketing of Kanzi. Kanzi is a taylor made solution specifically for mobile phones and automotive applications as well as Futuremark’s established device performance measurement products and services for mobile and embedded industries. Kanzi enables manufacturers of mobile phones and automotive display & infotainment systems to create richer and more intuitive user interfaces in radically less time than it takes with conventional tools and methods.
We bumped into Michel Wendell of Nexit Ventures (a VC firm focusing on mobile and wireless communication) during our Silicon Valley trip and asked him where does Nexit Ventures see the next big opportunities in the mobile space. See the video below.
Aava Mobile develops smartphone platform designs based on open technologies such as Linux and Android. The open platform technology will provide more flexibility for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and mobile operators to incorporate their own brand, user interface, content, and services into the devices.
The platform includes both hardware and core software components, and thus according to the companys accelerates the development of new handset models significantly. Similarily flexibility of the open platform design brings new business opportunities for application developers as well as mobile operators.
We did an video interview with Artturi Tarjanne, General Partner at Nexit Ventures, just before the news on Aava Mobile broke. You can find the video here and here.
Last week I talked to Artturi Tarjanne, a venture capitalist and a General Partner at Nexit Ventures in Helsinki, Finland.
You can find the first part of the interview here. In the second part (see video below) we discussed on what kind of companies Nexit is looking for and how you can approach Nexit if you’re a startup.
We touched on the quality of current and past deal flow in Finland. Tarjanne told me that even if we may lack in business skills vis-a-vis say the US, our technology skills are very strong even compared the Silicon Valley. This is the same message that for example Richard Allan Horning, a Principal at Fish and Richardson, a very prominent law firm in Silicon Valley, echoed in Tallinn just last week when we met him.
Venture Capital is in flux. Some say it’s frozen over and funds are pulling back, and some say it’s the best time to invest and find the next Googles and Facebooks. Everyone, including us , has an opinion on the topic.
Earlier this week I talked to Artturi Tarjanne of Nexit Ventures and asked what Nexit is doing in the current down market. Tarjanne has been one of the most active actors in the Finnish venture capital market and pivotal in building the emerging US-style venture capital market in Finland. We talked about how Tarjanne ended up to be a venture capitalist, what lead to Limbo to merge with Brightkite and why Nexit Ventures operates in two very different locations: here in the Nordics as well as in the Silicon Valley. We also discussed Nexit’s investment strategy and how they see the current handset market. Check out the video below.
Despite the economical climate and the horde of naysayers, a Finnish based software company, Comformiq secures 3 million euros in investment round lead by Nexit Ventures Oy. Funding mainly comes from Suomen Teollisuussijoitus Oy(‘Finland’s industry investment Ltd’) and unclosed group of US angel investors.
According to their press release, with this new funding, Comformiq plans to transfer its business executives to US, but retain the product development in Espoo, Finland. Apparently they are also getting a new CEO, A .K. Kalekos, and former CEO, Antti Huima, will step down to CTO.
Conformiq focuses in model-based testing tools, with their main product Conformiq Qtronic. The real innovation with this product is that usually you would need to write tests, but Conformiq Qtronic generates and executes tests itself based on the design model. A recent study(pdf warning) suggested that Test-Driven Development(TDD) takes 15-35% longer but leads to 40-90% fewer bugs. Conformiq says that they can decrease development time by speeding up the test design by 20-fold.
It’s great to see yet another funded software company that breaks free from the arctic blizzard. As myself, I see the software industry as a something what we arctic dwellers could really excel in global scale. Hopefully more great people and funding find this sector.
Axel Technologies, a Finnish multistandard mobile TV technology startup, has received EUR 2.4 million Series B investment from Nexit Ventures and Finnish Industry Investment Ltd. The investors are the same as in the first round approx a year ago. The funding will be used to strengthen Axel’s sales and marketing operations to cover the global market, and to “intensify R&D efforts focused on anticipated developments in the mobile TV market”, i.e., bridging the gap between the fragmented regional and global mobile TV technology solutions and standards.
Axel Technologies develops mobile TV technology enabling device manufactures to bring mobile TV to all portable devices, like mobile internet devices, portable media players, netbooks, and car navigators. Axel claims to support all most important mobile TV standards, and provides also Java and native UI client with features like service guide, purchases, live TV and on-demand video. Axel also statedly has the world’s only authentic DVB-H field test network.
So far mobile TV hasn’t taken off that well globally outside Japan and South Korea, although Axel Technologies’ press release quotes estimates that mobile TV subscribers are forecasted to reach 250 million by 2010. There are quite a many obstacles still in getting profitable business running around mobile TV, though, as the value chain is pretty long and complex with many stakeholders (manufacturers, wireless carriers, content providers, technology providers, broadcasters, …). Even in South Korea the popular services are apparently not profitable. Anyway, Axel aims to remove the technology bottleneck, after which “the content offered by broadcasters and operators will determine the success of the service” as Pekka Salonoja, General Partner of Nexit Ventures and the Chairman of Axel Technologies, comments.
Nexit Ventures, a venture capital firm stating to offer Nordic mobile companies a bridge to Silicon Valley markets, has announced an investment in Axel Technologies, a Finnish developer of mobile TV technologies. Other investor in the funding round led by Nexit is the company’s existing investor, a government-owned investment company Finnish Industry Investment Ltd. According to ITviikko the round was worth over one million euros.
Axel Technologies will use the financing to growth and internationalization, focus being on developing sales, marketing, and customer support.
The company provides mobile TV middleware and client solutions, and is targeting to get on the wave of first commercial digital mobile DVB-H standard TV services expected to be launched in Europe during 2008. So far there have been only 3G-based services available.
According to Pekka Salonoja, General Partner, Nexit Ventures, Axel Technologies is already one of top five developers of mobile TV middleware globally, customers including AMD and Thomson. Potential clients for the firm are mobile phone manufacturers, semiconductor suppliers, and mobile operators.
Finnish startup Rightware acquires Futuremark’s mobile and embedded business unit.
Today 
Last week I talked to Artturi Tarjanne, a venture capitalist and a General Partner at 
Despite the economical climate and the horde of naysayers, a Finnish based software company, 
Nexit Ventures
Biovakka Suomi Oy 
Bitbar
