Iobox
| Type of business | Privately held company |
|---|---|
|
Type of site
|
web portal |
| Founded | January 1999 |
| Headquarters | also Helsinki, London, Munich, , Oulu, United Kingdom |
| Area served | Europe |
| Founder(s) | Jari Ovaskainen, Henry Nilert |
| Industry | Mobile telecommunications |
| Products | iobox.* portal, Wapagotchi, "m-Mails" |
| Employees | 200+, at peak |
| Parent | Telefónica, Terra Networks |
| Slogan(s) | "we bring the Internet to your mobile" |
| Website | www.iobox.fi |
IObox Oy was a Finnish mobile and web portal operator. Formed in 1999, the dot-com company ended up as part of Telefónica Mobile.
At a sale price of $250m (€230m) in 2000, IObox represented the largest venture capital exit in Finland until the sale of MySQL AB in 2008 for $1bn (€670m).
IObox was founded in January 1999 by Jari Ovaskainen (formerly of Andersen Consulting) and Henry Nilert (formerly of Credit Suisse First Boston). Ovaskainen sold his car and used other assets including his life-savings to raise $120,000. A round of funding in the first month brought in €3.1m and the opening of a Helsinki office in Finland followed.
In November 2000, the office in London, England opened. Second round financing in December 2001 brought another €13m. In January 2000, after offices in Munich and had opened, London become the main company headquarters. IObox acquired Futuron Wireless Solutions and with an Oulu office opening in March 2000 had brought the staff count to 70 persons.
At the point of sale in July 2000, the company had grown to 100 employees. This expanded further to beyond 200 employees by near the end of the same year.
IObox operated mobile and web portals, having as many as three million users. In addition the company operated branded portal sites for customers such as the Swedish communications company Telia, using software written in Java EE.
In February 2000 IObox announced Wapagotchi, a digital pet similar to the briefly popular Tamagotchi style toys. The user ("owner") would control their pet using pages. If the virtual pet was neglected, or hadn't been cared for enough, the owner would receive SMS notifications, for example, stating that the pet was "hungry".
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Wikipedia