StarMobile Announces $2.5M Seed Investment Round As It Emerges From Stealth Mode

ATLANTA, Oct. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- StarMobile, Inc., a company that offers a disruptive, cloud-based solution that delivers enterprise mobility at a fraction of the cost and time of any other approach, announced the close of a $2.5 million seed investment round. Led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), the round also included Atlanta-based GRA Venture Fund and Atlanta Technology Angels (ATA). The capital will be used to expand StarMobile's engineering and sales teams, and increase market awareness as it emerges from stealth mode. StarMobile also announced that USVP Partner Dafina Toncheva would join StarMobile President and Chief Executive Officer Todd Fryburger and StarMobile Chief Technology Officer Dr. Raghupathy Sivakumar on the board of directors.

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"Companies use a variety of packaged on-premise or cloud-based applications, or custom-built systems, to run their businesses," said StarMobile President and CEO Todd Fryburger. "The problem today is that 'mobilizing' such enterprise applications can cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, and can take months or years to implement. StarMobile dynamically transforms any enterprise application into a mobile application at 5 percent to 20 percent of the cost and time of any other method."

StarMobile is built on pioneering technology (five patents pending) that radically simplifies enterprise mobility by intelligently deriving the mobile app directly from the original application. Within the cloud, the solution employs a revolutionary remote computing protocol called "MORPH" to apply a series of transformations in real-time to render a true mobile experience to the end user.

"StarMobile has a 'game changing' approach to addressing a massive challenge," said USVP Partner Dafina Toncheva. "Last year alone, companies spent $79 billion on packaged applications, part of a combined $634 billion that has been spent over the last 10 years. At the same time, there has been an equal investment in custom-built systems. Less than 5 percent of these systems have been mobilized to date, and with 1.3 billion people expected in the mobile workforce by 2015, the gap is only getting larger. StarMobile solves this problem."

Founded in 2012, StarMobile was conceived in the Georgia Tech Networking and Mobile Computing (GNAN) Research Laboratory, and was commercialized at VentureLab, the #2 University Business Incubator in the world, under grants from the Georgia Research Alliance and the National Science Foundation. The StarMobile leadership team has more than 70 years of experience in enterprise software, mobile computing and networking at recognized companies, as well as successful startups.

"The StarMobile story is an embodiment of our mission to help finance promising companies emerging from Georgia's universities," said GRA Venture Fund Managing Director Diana Murphy. "Moreover, the company serves as yet another example of why Atlanta has emerged as a national, if not global, locus for mobile technology."

"StarMobile's insistence on local investor participation was important as a statement of their ongoing commitment to the technology community from which they have evolved," said ATA Board Member Steve Chaddick. "StarMobile is an excellent example of the many exciting early-stage investment opportunities that are generated locally."

About US Venture Partners
USVP is a leading venture capital partnership, helping entrepreneurs transform their ideas and efforts into world-changing companies. The firm focuses on early stage ventures in information technology and health care, where innovation is unbridled and has led to the creation of economic wealth and millions of jobs over the past thirty-plus years of the firm's existence. Areas of particular interest to our investment professionals include data center and network technology, consumer and business services, digital media, communications, semiconductors, biopharmaceuticals and medical devices. The USVP team consists of former entrepreneurs, technologists, corporate executives, financial professionals and industry domain experts. www.usvp.com

About GRA Venture Fund, LLC
The GRA Venture Fund, LLC is a private investment fund helping to finance promising companies emerging from Georgia's universities. The Fund makes seed, early-stage and mid-stage investments in companies originating from GRA Ventures, the commercialization arm of the Georgia Research Alliance. Fund investors are the State of Georgia, private individuals, corporations and foundations. www.gra.org 

About Atlanta Technology Angels
The Atlanta Technology Angels (ATA) is an organization comprised of 120 accredited investors, institutions and sponsors. ATA is a member-led investment network that sources, performs due diligence, invests and provides post deal stewardship for early stage technology companies in Georgia and the Southeast. ATA ranks in the top 10 networks in the U.S. in portfolio size, members and opportunity flow and invests in technology-based companies with large market potential. www.angelatlanta.com 

About StarMobile
StarMobile is a disruptive, cloud-based solution that delivers enterprise mobility at a fraction of the cost and time of any other approach. Global 2000 companies use StarMobile to dynamically transform any packaged on-premise or cloud-based application, or custom-built system, into a mobile application. StarMobile requires no changes to existing applications, no coding, no need for exotic skills or learning a new platform, no re-building, simple configuration, low maintenance, no re-licensing, no app-specific downloads, with infinite scalability, end to end security, centralized mobile app management and provisioning, and detailed usage statistics, for any application, any use case, any mobile device, on any public, private or enterprise cloud platform. www.starmobileinc.com

Contact
Kristen Rachels
Marketing and Communications
StarMobile, Inc.
75 Fifth Street NW, Suite 326
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
Telephone: (678) 575-4167
Fax: (404) 549-9551
Email: [email protected] 
Web: www.starmobileinc.com 

SOURCE StarMobile, Inc.