SkyFire is getting ready to roll with its rich mobile browser. Last May, the company (finally) released its Symbian program after a long beta trial and announced that a BlackBerry version was in the works.
Earlier this Summer they hired former Travelocity executive Jeffrey Glueck to lead the company into the next phase. Now a regulatory filing reveals the startup has raised a Series C closed off its earlier Series B round of funding with an extra $5 million, reports peHUB.
There were no new investors cited in the filing, so it’s safe to assume this was a follow-up round from SkyFire’s existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Trinity Ventures, who had previously invested $17.8 million in the mobile browser maker. The total amount of funding raised by the company now reaches a healthy $22.8 million.
Skyfire is free and the only mobile browser that currently supports Flash, Silverlight, and a number of other technologies generally reserved for desktop browsers. The software runs on Windows Mobile (smartphones and PPC) and Nokia N and E Series (Symbian S60, 3rd Edition) phones.
What is the long term opportunity for Skyfire? Won’t their differentiation eventually become a commodity in the standard mobile browsers?
If SkyFire wants to be a browser of high standards, it can raise its funding. because this is the only software that runs on WindowsMobile and Nokia N and E Series phones. Anyway, it depends upon investors..
I agree with Ryan to a certain degree though, but I think the long-term opportunity is they could get acquired and integrated into one of the major handset makers. RIM just bought Torch Mobile for $25 mill (I think, unsure about the figure) and their browser kind of blew. Skyfire’s a bad ass browser, and I could see the likes of LG, Samsung, or Moto dropping some serious duckets on it.
No, they won’t. Skyfire is a server based browser.
Oh yeah, shit, forgot. Hmm. I suppose the market for third-party browsers is growing as more and more smartphones get sold, and Mozilla shows how a third party can make some decent coin from search revs. Also, i suppose they could go the licensing route like Opera does too.
the team and investors are top notch, i dont’ understand how they will make money? maybe it’s a secret and as a private company they are entitled to that but you can build a company only hoping it will get bought. does not give you mush leverage. will have to be a very special asset. i will have to say that most mobile browsers are terrible and that the iphone browser is a key differentiation point for them.
It’s an awful browser with no proxy support and it requires an account on their server which is completely unnecessary and slows it down even more. On WinMo it took multiple tries to even get it installed and lots and lots of errors. Overall it’s a HUGE mess.. Can’t believe anyone wasted money supporting it!
Your experience seems like an exception and not the rule. Skyfire on my WinMo 6.1 THC is an absolute joy to use. Along with Kinoma Player I consider an absolute must have for any WinMo user. Never had an error or problem with it.
Heck, I can even watch Hulu video on it! How cool is that?
Jason — I completely agree. I’m a SkyFire fan as well for any mobile browsing I do, and Hulu actually plays rather well.
Your comment on Kinoma is spot on as well. It’s such an underrated app, or maybe the people I talk to about it just don’t care, but truly one of the apps I use most and always install after a fresh ROM update.
Thomas, tell us how you really feel.
hmmm
Yo, no need to cover all these sites.
Most people here would be happy if there were just 3 internet sites in the world:
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Please limit your coverage to these 3 sites Robin.
Not surprising as most people are floating around 100 IQ mark.
Aren’t they battling a shrinking market? There’s the iPhone, Google Phone, Palm Pre, etc…
In the future most phones will be migrating to rich web features.
Hmm no mention of RIM the maker of blackberry aquiered SkyFire a few months back. Thus why a blackberry version is being developed, and windows mobile will be discontinued.
RIM didn’t buy Skyfire, they bought Torch Mobile.
http://jkonther...ckberry-likely/
Used the beta for a long time, good to know that I can update now Skyfire for my Nokia E71.
As much as I love Skyfire, I too worry about their long term revenue prospects. WinMo sure feels like a dying platform, and Nokia appears to be slowly moving away from S60/Symbian.
In either case, they make a great browser, and for as long as I have a WinMo phone, I hope they’ll continue to support it.
i tried out (on Nokia E71) skyfire and major complaint with their browser is it is quite slow compared to opera mini. And even to go back to previous page, it will reoload. They need come with some fast response and seamless back button if they really wan t to get significant foothold in mobile browser market. As a mobile user, i am more interested in finding browser which provides less latency as speeds are already at low end compared to desktop experience. hopefully the new funding helps them to make it more user friendly.
I like it very much, but as some of the other mention it is kind of slow.
I use it when I have to see a web page with has flash.
but what is really cool now and works well is Nimbuzz.
PS: it is not a mobile browser.
yeah nice work.. tell us how it somes.
“Skyfire is free and the only mobile browser that currently supports Flash, Silverlight, and a number of other technologies generally reserved for desktop browsers.”
content for SkyFire “Browser” renders on remote browser running on server and gets streamed to the Device, so it can support anything supported on Desktop Browser.
And they plan to make money… How?