A group of bored college students in Trivandrum, India started MobME in 2005 to aggregate content and sell bulk SMS services. They raised $0.5 million in angel funding while still in college. MobME now has 70 employees across multiple offices and delivers over 25 million SMS per day for major Indian mobile operators. They have won several awards for being one of India's most innovative startups.

1. The MobME Story
Rules are made to be broken!

2. Bunch of B.Tech Students in Trivandrum T
4th sem, different branches, but equally bored! H
The urge to do something different E
Looking out for an opportunity
S
P
A
R
K

3. What we had in us?
• Some small bit of money
• Enormous amount of guts
• At least one person who is really good at >>
– Ideation
– Implementation
– Crunching numbers
– Selling
• A great team is most critical to a start-up

4. Starting-Up
• Aug 2005, 5th Semester in College
• Registered a partnership firm, TORQUE
• Got tech guys on board
• Incubated in Technopark, Trivandrum
• Areas of business
– Content aggregation
– Bulk SMS retailing
– Out-dialer server in BPL

5. Growing Up
• We wanted to
– form a Pvt Ltd company
– hire more coders
– try making more products
– do business with BIG firms
– have an office in Cochin
• In short, we wanted a LOT OF MONEY!

6. Funding
• Angels are the best for a start-up
• Raised 0.25 M USD in Q3 2006
• MobME Wireless Solutions (P) Ltd
• Did all the stuff on the previous slide
• Raised another 0.25 M USD in Q1 2007
• But this time, at 10X valuation!
• Doing all that while still in college, is FUN!

7. Mentors
• George Brody, CEO, Globerangers (USA)
• RC Dutt, Incubation Specialist, Technopark
• Anil Thricovil, ex-CEO, Alamy Images
• Murali Gopalan, Senior VP, UST Global
• Nandakumar, CEO, Suntec
• Ashish Thomas, VP, Singtel
• Mammootty, Actor
• Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO, Infosys
• Shekhar Kirani, Senior VP, Verisign

8. What we do?

9. Clients & Partners

10. Today
• Team Size - 70
• 2 offices in Cochin & 1 in Trivandrum
• SOHO’s in Mumbai, Gurgaon & Chennai
• Presence in 10 other cities
• Partnered with all leading Indian Mobile Operators
• Server Deployments in more than 20 Telco Data Centers
• Operational Break-even & Q-Q double digit growth

11. We are achieving scale
• We deliver more than 25M SMS everyday (multiple services)
• Combined TPS on SMSCs of above 2000
• 200M Voice Calls handled over Asterisk & Digium
• We run one of India’s biggest GPRS based subscription service

12. Awards & Recognitions
• 2006 - Invited by then President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam
• 2006 - One of India's 100 Innovative Startups.
• 2007 - Finalist @ Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth Program
• 2007 - Youngest of NASSCOM 100 IT Innovators.
• 2008 - Wall Street Journal 10 Startups to watch for in India.
• 2009 - ISBA Entrepreneurship Award 2008
• 2009 - India’s Most Innovative Startup Award by NASSCOM
• 2009 - Emerge 50 Companies in India by NASSCOM

13. Core @ mobME
Sanjay Vijayakumar, CEO
Sony Joy, COO
Vivek Steve Francis, CFO

14. DARE
• Dreaming BIG is not a bad idea
• 20 yrs exp or a rich dad is not mandatory!
• There is no such thing as too much effort
• You can’t be unlucky too many times
• Advice is good but decision is yours
• Be open to adapt

15. L
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S
S
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16. Team @ MobME

17. Buzz me!
• Email: sony@mobme.in
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/sonyjoy
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sonyjoy
• Website: www.MobME.in
• Mobile: +91-99999-0-7669