STOCKHOLM, Sweden, March 02, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Appium today announced that it has secured SEK 45 million funding in an investment co-led by InnovationsKapital and Nordic Venture Partners, two of the leading technology investors in the Nordic area. For InnovationsKapital this is the first investment in Appium, while Nordic Venture Partners has been an investor in Appium since 2001.
"This new investment will allow us to rapidly expand our sales, marketing and delivery capability to exploit the global opportunity in the OSA/Parlay infrastructure products field. We also believe that InnovationsKapital will be a very good investor for Appium based on their previous success stories in the technology sector as well as their extensive industry experience", says Kristofer Kimbler, CEO and founder of Appium.
Appium is one of the first companies in the world to provide OSA/Parlay and Parlay X/Web Services based services and platforms for deploying advanced services on multiple networks. OSA (Open Service Access) is a key part of 2G, 2.5G and 3G networks and gives mobile service providers the ability to dramatically simplify the creation and management of many different services, features and functions.
Analysts currently anticipate the market for OSA/Parlay-based products to be worth in excess of EUR 900 million over the next 5 years. Appium is a strong vendor in this market - in the last 12 months, Appium have implemented five commercial deployments to multi-million subscriber network operators around the world.
"Appium has world class technology and the market potential is substantial. We are very excited about being an investor in Appium and to support the expansion of Appium's business", says Robert Gothner, Investment Director of InnovationsKapital.
About Appium
Appium Technologies was funded 1992 and is one of the leading vendors of next generation telecom application platforms based on open standards.
Appium's strategic focus is next generation application platforms and applications for the converging IT and Telecom market. Appium does not compete in the OSA/Parlay Gateway space, but provides comprehensive offerings through alliances with gateway providers. In the application space, Appium focuses on next generation personal communications in general and voice-enabled applications in particular.
The Appium product suite is complete in providing OSA/Parlay application development, validation, testing, deployment and provisioning components. It is the only platform on the market offering all of the tools required by network operators in the service lifecycle. The Appium Service Creation Environment and, especially, Service Deployment Platform have been designed based on an understanding of the strategic necessity for network operators to be able to have gateway agnostic application platform technology in order to properly deliver applications over several networks.
Further information about Appium can be found at www.appium.com
About InnovationsKapital
InnovationsKapital was founded in 1994 and is a leading early stage venture capital firm for innovative growth companies in the Nordic region. The business, carried out from offices in Gothenburg and Stockholm, is focused on Nordic investments within ICT and Healthcare & Life Sciences - dynamic sectors that are rapidly expanding and where Nordic research plays an important role. The capital (approx. EUR 200 million) is managed in three funds and is provided by highly reputable Swedish and international institutional investors.
Further information about InnovationsKapital can be found at www.innkap.se
About Nordic Venture Partners
Nordic Venture Partners a leading early and expansion stage venture capital firm for high growth companies in the ICT sector. Nordic Venture Partners operates a Nordic operation with offices in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki. Today the team manages EUR 220 million and invests in unique technologies that can be applied in segments with high growth; primarily in the following areas: Communications, Enterprise software and Internet technology.
Further information about Nordic Venture Partners can be found at www.nordicvc.com
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