Vancouver-based EQO, makers of a mobile VoIP and IM client, just closed a $9 million second round financing on top of their $4 million CDN (~$3.5 US) series A financing. The round was made by existing investors GrowthWorks and BDC Capital, with new investor, Ventures West, taking the lead. EQO is a J2ME application that runs on over 450 phones across all the major carriers that functions kind of like Meebo for your mobile.
EQO lets you chat on AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Google, Jabber, and Skype IM networks as well as place calls over Skype (Skype plug-in required). To use the IM client, you enter your credentials into your mobile phone, which logs you on to the services using your data network. Skype calls are placed through Skype and an EQO plug-in on your computer. When you want to call a Skype contact, or other PSTN number, your phone sends a data message to Skype on your computer to set up the call. When the call is ready, your computer calls back your phone over the voice network using SkypeOut. This is the same as SoonR’s product.
There have been several startups pursuing Skype on mobile phones, including another Canadian startup, Mobivox. However, Skype has been endorsing iSkoot as their mobile partner, taking much of the wind out of these companies’ sails. GigaOm has some good coverage on the subject.
EQO plans on using the new money to expand their team, internationalization, and consumer reach. We got a first taste of their developing consumer facing portion of their product back in November when they launched an embeddable widget that lets your friends send you multi media messages from your web page.
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This VC news is getting too old and waaayyy boring. Define web 2.0?
Fring.com is better. It has native Szmbian client app.
That too much money -
- Any news on the name? / Did they just land a 3char?
- heh that is sooooo 5th grade
How about discussing the merits and shortcomings of the product? Support for 450 mobile phones sounds good. I would guess their current client is J2ME, but from their job listings they are also looking at developing symbian and.net native apps in C++.
What’s in a name? Why is that fifth grade? I don’t really care what they call it? Any suggestions for better names?
People seem to be mad at the amount of capital raised; jealousy is evil.
Excellent 3-letter domain name and there’s a nice ring to it! Wonder how they got the domain name.
does anyone know how large eqo’s installed base is?
mobile chat is a strong application for 18-29 year old demographic. one hurdle for eqo and any mobile company is that customers who wish to use robust applications will need to have an unlimited data plan. now that we have twitter, gmail, google maps, etc.; it is time for the wireless carriers like cingular, verizon, t-mobile and sprint to step up and provide a better unlimited data rate plan. once the prices of unlimited data fall from $20 to $15 and especially $10 a month, mobile apps will really begin to take off.
I think EQO’s logo a little too close to Skype’s, especially since their in the same space. Deduct a point for lack of originality.
When you enter college… How write computer essay about
“Soonr, EQO, pickr, etc ” without spelling mistake?
I wonder how many founders here get C’s in their class.
$9 Million? That’s about $1 Million per user!
Its a nifty idea, but I’m pretty sure I recently saw an article indicating that cell phone carriers aren’t going to take this lying down.