HEADLINE NEWS
Vivotech Announces New Funding Round as it Seeks to Capitalize on M-Commerce Buzz

Contactless reader and NFC software vendor Vivotech announced today a new funding round, which it said brings the amount of its total venture capital financing to nearly $100 million over more than 10 years.
The Silicon Valley-based vendor, however, declined to reveal the amount or name the contributors of its latest funding round, series D.
But the latest round likely amounts to around $6 million since the vendor last June confirmed that it had raised a total $90 million after announcing its series C funding round of $24 million.
For that round, Vivotech announced the contributors, including new investors EDBI and SingTel Innov8, both of Singapore, along with Motorola Solutions Venture Capital. They joined existing investors, which put up more money as part of the $24 million round, including Alloy Ventures, Citi Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurveston, First Data Corp., Motorola Mobility, Nokia Growth Partners and NCR.
Since its founding in 2001, Vivotech said it has raised a total $96 million.
As NFC Times reported last June, its venture capital funding will help as Vivotech continues to try to move its business away from its dependence on unprofitable and commoditizing contactless point-of-sale payment readers to software and services used for payment and to deliver, track and redeem mobile offers, such as coupons and loyalty, for consumers on their smartphones. Web companies, among other new market entrants, see NFC technology as a way to connect the online and offline worlds.
Besides having shipped nearly 1 million terminals globally over the past several years, Vivotech in today’s announcement noted that its software and POS terminal technologies are being used by Google for its Google Wallet and is also being integrated with the Isis mobile-commerce platform. That’s in addition to banks and merchants that use the company’s products.
Vivotech is not the only point-of-sale technology vendor that Google and Isis are working with, and Vivotech is facing stiff competition on both the hardware and software side from such vendors as VeriFone, the largest POS terminals supplier in the United States.
Vivotech also offers trusted service manager software, in addition to the payment, loyalty and couponing platforms. It has also promoted a mobile wallet in the past, but competing mobile wallet supplier C-Sam filed a patent infringement suit against it last September.
Michael “Mick” Mullagh, who has served as CEO but was listed as Vivotech’s executive chairman in today’s announcement, said in the announcement that a slew of new NFC devices are expected to hit the market over the next two years and mandates from payment networks will prompt merchants to upgrade their POS terminal systems by 2015 to EMV and contactless.
This would create more demand for Vivotech’s software and systems, Mullagh said in a statement, adding that the latest financing would help Vivotech in providing the infrastructure needed to “deliver on the promise of m-commerce.”
Vivotech last year was rumored to be planning an initial public offering for as early as 2012. Mullagh told NFC Times last June that he projected the company would turn a profit sometime in 2012 and then would consider an IPO. Vivotech would have the “profile” of an IPO-ready company in 12 to 18 months, though he added that an IPO is not necessarily in the cards, Mullagh said at the time.
Mullagh also said at the time that Vivotech needs a more balanced mix of software and hardware sales as it moves forward.
He declined to release Vivotech’s revenue figures, but has said they are in the double-digit millions.












