startupmania

Start-Up Zlango, which is developing an SMS service which incorporates icons, has completed a second fund raising round, raising a sum of $3 million. The fund raising was led by the venture capital fund Benchmark Capital, and the fund was joined by several private investors.

Zlango has already seen roughly $13 million in investments, by funds such as Benchmark and Excel Partners as well as a long line of private investors, among them Rafi Gidron.

According to Zlango representatives, among the company’s clients are cellular providers such as Telecom Italy, TMN Portugal, Kiev Star Ukraine, Vodaphone Hong-Kong and Macao and others. The purpose of the last fund raising round is to expand its marketing and sales array, as well as continue development and support for the company’s products on newer models of smart phones and new operating systems.

“The last year has been a major shift for Zlango, with a user base exceeding 2 million and hundreds of millions of icons integrated into text messages every month,” says Roni Haim, CEO and former VP of Research and Development at Alvarion. Haim replaced former Zlango CEO (and founder) Yoav Lorch. “Zlango has also started receiving a profit from contracts signed with cellular operators and content suppliers around the world.”

Haim also added that the company’s business model is based mostly on income from the cellular operators, which, in turn, is based on active users registered to the service as well as for the use of the company’s technological infrastructure. “In light of the huge market potential that exists in text messaging around the world, and wide demand for a content-rich user experience Zlango offers, we are very focused and optimistic about Zlango’s future,” Haim emphasized.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum