payvia Acquires Mogreet to Create the First End-to-End Mobile Payments, User Targeting and Engagement Platform

LOS ANGELES, May 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- payvia, the leader in direct carrier billed mobile payments, today announced its strategic acquisition of Mogreet, an innovative mobile video and rich media messaging engagement solutions provider that is used by thousands of marketers, retailers, small businesses and developers including major brands such as Cox Media Group, Emmis Communications and Gamefly. The full Mogreet team will join payvia, with Mogreet Founder and CEO James Citron serving as payvia's Chief Marketing Officer. 

The acquisition is significant as it will set payvia apart from the rest of the mobile industry with a simplified solution that increases revenues for businesses through highly targeted mobile payment transactions and relevant ongoing engagement via branded communications, offers and mobile relationship management.  

"Our mobile payments offer resonates strongly with the market because it is built on our proprietary carrier connected technology that gives us a unique ability to understand consumer mobile usage," said Darcy Wedd, CEO, payvia. "Our clients have told us they also need a simpler way to link targeted mobile transactions to their marketing campaigns. By integrating Mogreet's solutions on our platform we answer that need. As the only company to solve a known disconnect between traditional mobile commerce and engagement solutions, payvia is well positioned to increase mobile's share of the $252 billion* e-commerce market."

payvia operates the largest direct carrier connected messaging and mobile payments platform in the U.S., engaging with 120 million unique mobile users and processing billions of mobile messages every year. The company has paid out to merchants and developers worldwide more than $2 billion in global mobile commerce revenues.

Clients of payvia and Mogreet can expect the following benefits from the acquisition:

• Mogreet's clients can expect faster message throughput and up to 2x higher mobile video quality through payvia's directly connected carrier infrastructure
• International reach through payvia's global messaging footprint via direct carrier connections in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific
• Mogreet's cloud-based video and rich messaging technology will be integrated into payvia's industry-leading mobile payments platform
• The Mogreet API will become a core component of the payvia payments API providing simple access to cross-platform mobile payments, rich media and video messaging, via SMS, MMS and in-app messaging
• payvia will continue to support all Mogreet's customers and expand upon its existing service offering

Commenting on the importance the acquisition, Sam Brown, chief operating officer of Organizing for Action, and former finance chief of staff of President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign said: "During the 2012 Presidential Election, we drew on payvia's mobile payments expertise and high capacity messaging infrastructure to empower millions of Americans to make their voices heard by contributing to Obama for America, and also supporting our historic get-out-the-vote effort. We look forward to payvia's new combination of rich media, a dynamic, extensible engagement platform, and robust carrier infrastructure to help more and more Americans organize in support of the agenda they voted for in November 2012."

Angie May Cook, vice president, Emmis Digital, also commented: "We believe that mobile engagement will be the driving force of radio's digital revolution.  Mobile devices provide the perfect distribution platform for consumers to take the utility of radio everywhere they go and the capability to communicate with our audiences one to one. payvia and Mogreet's unique combination of dynamic mobile messaging and secure mobile payments will enable us to explore new opportunities in radio advertising by connecting audio commercials with mobile advertising and mobile payments to provide advertisers with a direct connection to purchase on the mobile device."

"Businesses of all sizes are looking for better ways to engage with their increasingly mobile customer base to drive awareness, interest and most importantly, revenue. For the first time ever, marketers and merchants will now have a way to connect with their customers using text, picture and video messaging, but also to drive an immediate transaction via the simplest mobile payments platform in the industry," said James Citron, CEO of Mogreet.

*Forrester Research Mobile Commerce Forecast 2012-2017 (US)

About payvia 
payvia is a leading mobile and online payments company that allows consumers to make simple and secure payments via their mobile phone. By connecting directly to the carrier network, payvia enables consumers to pay for digital goods and services using their mobile phone, adding purchases directly to their carrier bill. Visit us at www.usepayvia.com. payvia is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in San Francisco, Seattle and Boston. payvia is backed by leading investors Silver Lake Sumeru, Montgomery & Co., and Trinity Ventures. 

About Mogreet 
Founded in 2006, Mogreet is the leading cloud-based communications platform enabling businesses to engage with their mobile consumers using rich media, video and text messaging. The company's products include, an Enterprise CRM platform powering the largest marketers' video and rich media messaging campaigns, a small business marketing platform used by thousands of small businesses to deliver MMS, and a developer toolkit enabling developers to integrate Mogreet's proprietary technology into their applications. Mogreet is headquartered in Venice, California. Learn more at www.mogreet.com 

SOURCE payvia