Just how hot will the emerging mobile market be this year?
If the first notable IPO in the space is any indication, 2011 could be a barn burner. Velti (LON:VEL), a mobile services provider formed ten years ago in Greece. Now headquartered in Dublin Ireland, Velti had initially planned to issue shares in the $9-11 range with the hope of raising around $120M. As demand increased, they ended up issuing 12.5 million shares at $12, raising $150 million. However, that’s just the start of this story as on Friday, its first full day of trading, its shares impressively closed up another 30% at $15.58, leaving it with an approximate $800 million market capitalization.
Anyone who has been reading my past commentary on the forthcoming mobile revolution should not be surprised. With so much money looking to capitalize on this mobile revolution, a technology movement predicted to possibly dwarf the original PC and internet movement could be in play. Respected technology pundits like Mary Meeker maintain there exists only a limited amount of ways to currently invest in the space. Publicly traded mobile pure plays are simply few and far between. Where the internet revolution provided investors with a myriad of choices to invest in and profit from, the mobile revolution currently requires investors to dig deeper in search of opportunity.
A clear testimonial to this fact can be found by looking no further than Wikimobidex’s December listing of the top 40 mobile companies to watch. Wikimobidex is a Web-based index of mobile marketing and advertising firms. According to their findings, here are the Top 40.
Here’s what we find when taking a closer look at the list ( courtesy of mobilemarketer):
- 32 are private which could be takeover targets
- 4 are part of larger companies & not for sale
- 2 trade in London, including Velti
- 1 is Augme Tech which trades as “AUGT”
Considering this, it’s easy to understand this increased demand for Velti evidenced Friday. Augme Technologies (AUGT) has also seen its shares hit a new 52 week high of $4.25 in recent weeks. Velti and Augme both provide mobile marketing and advertising solutions across multiple media types and channels into a market that ABI Research estimates will reach $29B by 2014. With billions of dollars looking for…
