Silicon Valley is an exit market for Finnish mobile investors

^{Mobile search excites VC’s} Silicon Valley is an exit market for Finnish mobile investors

13 Jan 2005 at 17:31 GMT Timo Poropudas

American mobile markets are maturing and Silicon Valley venture capitalists are starting to understand mobility, said Michel Wendell, a general partner in Nexit Ventures. He was speaking at the MobileMonday January event in Helsinki.

Silicon Valley works as an exit market for those VC’s that that have invested in Finnish and Nordic mobile companies, Wendell said. He explained that Finnish and Nordic mobile companies tend to have deeply technological products that cover very narrow functionalities or services.

Nordic markets tend to be too small to support the Nordic high tech mobile products. They can be best utilized by large operators or content providers.

“Silicon Valley is not the end user for Nordic developed products. It is a market place where large players locate technologies and services that suit their purposes,” says Wendell.

“The US market is starting to heat up and this time the heat is coming from hype. Market is real and it going forward.”

“Coverage and quality of mobile networks are going up. This makes it possible to take up new capabilities, Wendell says.

Silicon Valley is focusing on contents and service and building mobile internet infra.

Wendell sees that messaging, push-to-talk and instant messaging are gaining popularity in the US more than in Europe.

Java-based application are widespread and very active. Symbian, on the other hand, is very rare and very expensive technology.

Finnish mobile world needs to get out of the mobile phone centric mindset. Wendell believes. There is a wide field available also on other handheld devices and wireless LANs. Rapid consumer adoption of digital music and cameras and digital broadcasting provides plenty of opportunities.

Nexitin sijoituksia