NY-based mobile web startup bMobilized, which bills itself as a competitor to the well-heeled new Google partner DudaMobile, has just closed its Series A round of funding to the tune of $1.5 million. The funding was raised from two early stage European VC firms, Alliance Venture and Investinor.
Like DudaMobile, bMobilized is focused on enabling SMBs to convert their existing websites into HTML5-enabled mobile sites that work on any device, OS, or web browser.
According to CEO Ben Seslija, nine out of every ten small business websites don’t have mobile versions of their sites today – and yet, Americans are poised to spend an estimated $115 billion in goods and services on mobile devices by 2015. So yes, there’s clear market need for services operating in this space.
As for bMobilized, its core offering is a lot like DudaMobile’s, competing feature-by-feature with many of DudaMobile’s key advantages, including automatic sync, templating, speed, customizable widgets and more.
bMobilized says it uses 300 different algorithms to identify and analyze the different parts of the website, and then coverts that site to a mobile-friendly version in under 30 seconds. Also offered are over 30 features designed to improve the mobile experience, including things like a contact bar, maps, social sharing buttons (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and LinkedIn), support for a product promo window on the homepage, and more.
That contact bar is especially helpful, as it can be customized with widgets like “click-to-call,” “click-to-email,” “click-to-SMS” and more, which allows visitors to instantly connect with the business they’re researching.
Support for ad products is available, too, including text, image and video ads from Google AdWords, QR Code, and in-app ads. And again, like DudaMobile, the mobile sites automatically sync with the company’s main website when changes are made.
Pricing is competitive with DudaMobile’s product, for the most part. Although DudaMobile offers a free level of service, bMobilized’s monthly fees of either $5/month or $9/month (with support) are comparable to DudaMobile’s $9/mo. middle-of-the-road plan. So why choose one over the other? Well, obviously each company thinks their own offering is the better choice. Seslija just says customers should try out bMobilized for themselves to be convinced.
bMobilized, now a team of fourteen, was founded in 2005 in Oslo, Norway, but only relocated to NYC in 2010. Prior to this round, bMobilized had taken investment from European and U.S. firms, Tomas AS, Magnus Invest AS (the personal investment company for Birger Magnus, bMobilized chairman), Spring Capital, Redwood Partners, and Ignitas AS.