Velti
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| Former Public company | |
| Industry | Mobile Marketing and Advertising |
| Founded | London, UK (2001) |
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Key people
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Alex Moukas, Chairman |
| Products | Velti Inspire, Velti Excite |
| Services | • Mobile CRM • Loyalty solutions • Large scale promotions for mobile operators |
| Website | www |
Velti is a mobile marketing company offering its solutions to major mobile operators and brands. The company was founded in 2001, went public in London in 2006 and NASDAQ in 2011. In 2013 Blackstone, one of the largest private equity groups with more than $300 billion under management acquired the assets of Velti and the company was taken private.
Velti was founded in 2001 by Alex Moukas and Chris Kaskavelis as a software and ASP provider serving the telecommunications industry. The same year, Nicholas Negroponte, then the laboratory chairman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, joined the company as a non-executive director. In 2002, Velti gained Vodafone as a customer. By the end of that year, the company had reached 35 employees.
After a 2006 initial public offering on the 's AIM Market, Velti further expanded its U.S. operations with the opening of an office in New York. A San Francisco office was created the following year. Velti was one of the 10-best performing IPOs in London Stock Exchange's AIM in 2007
Beginning in 2007, Velti entered into a series of joint ventures and partnerships with the Interpublic Group to create Ansible, a mobile marketing joint venture.
In 2008, Velti opened a new office in Beijing and made an investment in CASEE. In India, Velti partnered with HT Media Limited, India’s second-largest media group, on a mobile marketing joint venture called HT Mobile Solutions. 2008 also saw the opening of a new Velti office in Moscow.
In 2009, Velti announced the acquisition of Ad Infuse, a provider of personalized mobile advertising in the U.S. increasing the company’s headcount to more than 400, including more than 200 technology staff.
In 2010, the company announced the acquisition of Mobclix,. A second 2010 acquisition added Media Cannon, a developer of mobile advertising tools and technology. By the end of 2010, Velti had grown to more than 500 employees in 30 countries.
In January, 2011, Velti completed an initial public offering of 12 million common stock shares on NASDAQ under the trading symbol VELT. The IPO raised approximately $150 million, according to ROAMdata (Boston-based subsidiary of Ingenico).
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