PocketGear acquires rival, becomes top independent mobile apps provider

Updated Feb. 23, 2010 at 6:25 a.m.

PocketGear acquires rival, becomes top independent mobile apps provider

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By RICK SMITH, Local Tech Wire editor

DURHAM, N.C. – Make way, Apple and Google. A major new player is rapidly growing in the smart phone “apps” marketplace – PocketGear.

And as of today, PocketGear is a lot bigger, having acquired Irving,-Texas-based Handango.

“We now believe we are the largest independent apps store in the world beyond Apple and Google apps,” PocketGear founder and Chief Executive Officer Jud Bowman told Local Tech Wire.

“We are excited about this transaction because it combines two of the largest independent apps stores. It’s also about bringing together the largest base of applications and more than 32,000 developers.

“It’s also really about scale and expanding our global reach.”

Combined, the companies have generated more than $400 million in sales, Bowman said. “It’s evident we’re growing pretty fast,” he added.

Alex Bloom, the CEO at Handango, will join Motricity as its chief operating officer. Bowman and Bloom are old friends, having worked together at Motricity.

“We recruited Alex to come work for us at Motricity,” Bowman recalled, “and he was recruited away to run Handango. This is a company I have wanted to buy for a long time.

“I have worked with them in the past; and they have been a competitor,” he added. “It will be good to join forces with them.”

Outside of sheer size, Bowman said the larger PocketGear will be “the world’s largest cross-platform, open app store.” While Apple’s apps store is for Apple devices and Google supports Android, PocketGear supports Android and a host of other company, operating system and devices.

The combined entity:

• Numbers four of the world’s tip handset makers as storefront and distribution partners

• Has relationships with four of the top U.S. wireless providers

• Has partnerships with three of the top 10 wireless service companies worldwide

• Offers a combined marketplace will include more than 140,000 paid and free titles

• Supports apps for Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Widnows Mobile, Palm, Linux and Java

• Works closely with RIM, Microsoft, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon Wireless

PocketGear will maintain its headquarters in Durham as well as an office in Irving. “We hope all the Handango people will stay,” Bowman said. “There is a lot of good talent.”

Bowman also expects to add more headcount beyond the acquisition. “We will be expanding in Durham as we grow,” he said.

PocketGear also has an office in Munich, Germany.

The acquisition closed on Friday and boosted PocketGear’s full-time employee count to 40. The firm also has some 20 contractors. Some 18 people are based in Irving.

While Bowman wouldn’t disclose terms of the deal, he did point out that the acquisition could be made because PocketGear is profitable and growing quickly. But he also noted the company is not rushing ahead with plans for a public offering of stock. His former firm, Motricity from which PocketGear was spun out in June of 2008, is trying to execute an IPO worth $250 million.

“We want to grow, but it makes sense not to grow too fast,” Bowman said.

In less than two years, the mobile applications shopping mall has rapidly grown to become one of the biggest competitors for Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android.

Launched in June 2008 as a spinoff from mobile content services firm Motricity, PocketGear is backed by venture capital firms Wakefield Group and Noro-Moseley Partners.

PocketGear already touts itself as the “world’s largest mobile app store” with more than 100,000 applications and digital media titles available.

App stores already available include one for Android applications as PocketGear moved quickly to capitalize on the core operating system developed by Google. Other stores focus on popular operating systems to support Palm, BlackBerry (Research In Motion) and Symbian devices.

The storefront list:

• PocketGear.com
• SymbianGear.com
• PalmGear.com
• RimGear.com
• Smartphone.net
• Mobile2Day.de
• AndroidGear.com

Reflecting the explosive growth of smart phones worldwide, PocketGear supports more than 2,000 mobile devices in more than 200 countries.

Major partners include phone makers Samsung and Palm plus AT&T, AOL, T-Online and Softwareload.

The company has in less than two years already helped partners provide $2.5 billion in mobile content through more than 750 million downloads.

In excess of 30,000 developers provide apps.

Handango, which also was backed by venture capital firms, had raised some $75 million in financing.

Tags: Venture & Innovation, Noro-Moseley, Wakefield, Telecommunications and Wireless, Local Firms, Apple

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