ViewRanger GPS Application Secures Further Funding
9th September 2010, Cambridge, UK: ViewRanger GPS, the award-winning outdoor navigation application from Augmentra, today announced it has secured a second round of funding of $500k from its original investors and angels including Cambridge Capital Group and Thames Valley Investment Network.
The investment underpins the company’s drive to consolidate ViewRanger’s position as a leader in the fast-growing navigation app market and as an innovator in changing the way people use their smartphone to enhance their participation in a whole range of outdoor leisure pursuits, such as walking, biking and riding. ViewRanger occupies an exciting and fast moving space at the intersection of the mobile applications, navigation, healthy lifestyle and the green agenda by providing an on-going service proposition beyond simply an initial download.
The new funding will be used for working capital to expand the business, increasing the company's offering including new content, social networking and marketing. ViewRanger will also be using the funding to support a significant push into the US market, as well as other new markets.
In the first half of 2010, ViewRanger enjoyed its most active and successful period in its history achieving all the objectives set by the investors; with the launch of the app on Apple OS – iPhone and iPad, Android OS and distribution gains on Symbian into the OVI market, together with the achievement of global reach using Open mapping versions.
This has resulted in a significant increase in performance metrics across all three areas of its business model – new customers acquired, revenue from mapping data and route content sales revenue. ViewRanger has pioneered the concept of downloadable premium map and route content and through the period has seen over 2/3rds of downloads are premium paid-for guides. The app has been widely covered in the media, including in The Sunday Times and on Channel Five’s The Gadget Show.
The app is globally available on Ovi Market, with Apple version live in all 14 countries (12 European, USA & New Zealand), where premium topographic mapping data is available and on Android market in all “paid” app countries.. The service includes anywhere access to a growing database of downloadable free and paid-for expert guided routes from a range of content providers including Walkingworld, Ramblers Association, The AA and Excellent Books. Its proven track record and reliability mean that it is used and trusted by many of Great Britain’s search and rescue teams.
Augmentra CEO Craig Wareham commented, “ViewRanger is a highly innovative and disruptive app in a very large market. An important step of the company going forward is to expand the offering with more content and take the app more mainstream for anyone looking to explore the great outdoors – air, land or sea.”
Lead Investor and Board Chairman, mobile industry expert Richard Brennan said: "We are delighted to be reinvesting in this round with ViewRanger, which has continued to innovate and lead in this new market. We are proud to be supporting the company as it grows into a new stage of development and geographies. ?With a strong team in place they are well positioned to continue their success and really shake up the industry just as they have been doing.”
Taylor Vintners were the company's lawyers for the round.
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About ViewRanger GPS
ViewRanger GPS is the award winning mobile phone application which delivers GPS navigation, mapping and location-based content to outdoor activity enthusiasts and outdoor professionals worldwide.
ViewRanger has been running on a range of Symbian S60 mobile devices for over two years and in 2010 launched on Apple iPhone and recently on many Android OS Smartphones Versions of ViewRanger GPS either provide global map coverage from Open sourced mapping, or premium topographic map data available for a growing number of countries including Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Ireland, parts of Italy, Norway, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, USA.
The ViewRanger GPS application works with Facebook and has an API to allow web-based location sharing and can be integrated with Twitter to allow location based “mash-ups”.
Augmentra Ltd is the Cambridge UK based Angel funded software development company behind ViewRanger GPS, and is partnered with national mapping agencies across Europe including Ordnance Survey in the UK, BKG in Germany and with a range of content publishers, including National Geographic in North America.
Follow Augmentra at www.twitter.com/viewranger
Press Contact:
Isabel Fox, IF Communications – [email protected]
M: +44 (0)7703 477818