and synchronization solutions, today announced that it is acquiring consumer mobile email specialist AxisMobile for US$4.9 million in new Synchronica shares. Synchronica also stated that it has raised additional funds of US$10 million from new and existing institutional investors which brings the total funding secured in 2008 to US$18 million. The additional funds will be used to accelerate product integration and fuel the growth of the combined business in emerging markets, such as China, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

The AxisMobile acquisition aims to make Synchronica the leading player in mass market mobile email and synchronization middleware for mobile operators and service providers. The addition of AxisMobile's complimentary technology, customer base, and routes to market, combined with the injection of US$10 million of additional funds will enable Synchronica to provide mass market mobile email solutions that work on more than three billion mobile phones in the market today.

AxisMobile's consumer mobile email platform complements Synchronica's award-winning Mobile Gateway software by adding email-to-SMS and email-to-MMS gateways, as well as a clientless solution for WAP / XHTML browser access. AxisMobile's patented Optimizer email transcoding gateway further adds the ability to display a large variety of attachments, such as Word, Excel, and Powerpoint presentations on standard feature phones handsets that would otherwise be unable to support such functionality.

The AxisMobile acquisition will also enlarge Synchronica's footprint in emerging markets by adding a strong sales force and key customer contracts in the relatively untapped areas of Eastern Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and Russia to Synchronica's existing sales presence in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Currently, AxisMobile has eight live customer installations with major mobile operators, predominantly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and China.

Customers include: MTS, the largest mobile operator in Russia and CIS with 84 million customers; Megafon, a Russian mobile network operator with 34 million customers across 88 regions of the Russian federation including its Moscow subsidiary Sonic Duo; T-Mobile; IXI Mobile, consumer back-ends for USA, Switzerland, Turkey, Uruguay; E-Plus, Germany's third largest mobile network operator with 13.6 million customers; as well as a major Chinese bank.

AxisMobile has also secured contract wins with a leading Ukrainian mobile network operator, a further leading tier one Russian mobile network operator, and a leading Swiss mobile network operator.

Commenting on the acquisition, Synchronica CEO Carsten Brinkschulte says: "The fundraising and the acquisition of AxisMobile is a dramatic acceleration for Synchronica, and I believe that it will build value for our shareholders. We aim to build a world leader in the market of consumer mobile email and synchronization solutions, and this acquisition is a key milestone which will improve our competitive positioning and accelerate our commercial growth. It will increase our ability to sell to customers, particularly to those in emerging economies where we see the largest potential growth for mobile email and synchronization. With the fundraising and the acquisition of AxisMobile, Synchronica now has sufficient mass and funding to take advantage of the outstanding opportunity to exploit the commercial potential of mass market mobile email. The next few years will be an exciting time for us all here at Synchronica and for our customers around the globe. We look forward with increased confidence from this inflection point."

Shai Schiller, Executive Chairman of AxisMobile, adds: "This is the start of an exciting new era for AxisMobile and our customers. There are real synergies between Synchronica's products and target markets and our own, so it makes great commercial sense to combine forces. Both companies are committed to open standards and to developing products that work on even the most basic of handsets - a must given that the market for mass market mobile email is being fuelled by demand from the developing world. We are confident that the combined might of our two companies will prove to be greater than the sum of its parts."

Forecasts point to emerging markets as a breakthrough area for mass market mobile email. Informa predicts that there will be 4.81 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2012, with the next billion subscribers coming from emerging markets where PC and fixed-line penetration is low.

Synchronica's Mobile Gateway delivers push email and mobile synchronization of calendar and contact data, targeting consumer and business users with connectors to mass market mailboxes, such as Yahoo or Gmail, as well as business mailboxes, such as Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino. Unlike other solutions, Mobile Gateway does not require users to install additional software on the handset or behind the firewall and instead uses the dominant open industry standards Push IMAP and SyncML (OMA DS) to synchronize the built-in email and PIM applications pre-installed on more than 1.5 billion handsets in the market.

With the injection of AxisMobile technology, even the most basic phones will be able to send and receive email, further expanding the addressable market for Mobile Gateway in the consumer sector and in particular in emerging markets where low-end devices are dominating the market.

 Information Source:    Synchronica

Image of Carsten Brinkschulte courtesy of Synchronica website

Image of Shai Shiller courtesy of his Facebook webpage