October 19, 2005

Web 2.0: Meet Venture Capital

Continued from page 1

By Jon Burke

Alarm:clock is a daily news site that evaluates privately-held technology startups in the areas of hardware, software, the Internet, and wireless communications. One industry overview and one company profile by alarm:clock's editors come to Technology Review every Wednesday by special arrangement.

Fueling the Wireless Wars
M:Metrics sells data that wireless companies need to track their competitors. 

Company: M:Metrics
HQ: Seattle, WA
Founded: June 2004

Management: Will Hodgman is CEO and co-founder. He has been around the block with online analytics companies. He was president and CEO of Sightward, a predictive analytics company that he sold to Digital Connexxions. He was also executive vice president of NetRatings, provider of the Nielsen/NetRatings service, and president of measurement at Jupiter Media Metrix. MediaMetrix had acquired the company Hodgman founded, AdRelevance, in October 1999 for $66 million. Hodgman is also currently a board director of HitWise, another prominent measurement firm.

Investors: In October 2005, the company raised $7 million from Prism Venture Partners, i-Hatch, and The Kantar Group. In September 2004, M:Metrics had received its first round of funding from i-Hatch Ventures.

Business Model: The company measures and tracks data that let players in the wireless industry -- cellular carriers, content providers, handset manufacturers -- know how their own products, suppliers, and competitors are faring. The company already has 38 customers -- including Cingular, ESPN, Nokia, and Warner Music -- which pay $75,000 each for annual subscriptions to the service.

Competitors: Telephia and Qpass

Dirt: It always amazes us that the incumbents don't do a better job of taking advantage of new channels. A number of large companies track Internet data -- but M:Metrics has been able to appear out of the blue and take money off the table. The demand for data on the wireless market may become just as great as that for Internet data, so this is a big, growing market.