New business model, new funding
Qpass Inc., a provider of "activity management business system software for wireless carriers and other network operators," that used to provide a kind of micropayment system, today announced the first closing of its Series B financing, securing $10.7 million.
From the press release: RRE Ventures led the round with participation from new investor Westbury Partners, along with existing investors Hook Partners, Oak Investment Partners, Seapoint Ventures, and Venrock Associates. The company's management also participated in the round. In conjunction with the financing, Qpass announced that Joseph G. Fogg, III, chairman of Westbury Partners and former head of worldwide investment banking at Morgan Stanley & Co., has joined the company's board of directors.
This funding marks the third and final step in the transition from the company's original business plan to one that is solely focused on providing business systems to network operators. "Over the last eighteen months we have restructured and narrowed the focus of the company, rebuilt our software platform from the ground up, and have now completed our recapitalization, emerging with a fully-funded business plan in hand," said Chase Franklin, Qpass CEO. "We're proud to have completed this process while continuing to support our leading wireless carrier customers, adding support for new services like Wi-Fi access and Java downloads along the way."
So, the idea is that having failed to be the enabler of paying for stuff, Qpass will now be the enabler of paying for access and stuff. The focus on wireless is the right one, but if the payment system doesn't become a single wallet for the end-user, it becomes just another billing item on the credit card each month, adding to the complexity of paying for access and stuff rather than removing any steps.
Posted by Mitch Ratcliffe at December 30, 2002 12:41 PM | TrackBack