SambaMobile – a new service which offers ad-funded broadband for laptops, netbooks and iPads has raised its second round of angel funding bringing its short range angel investment up to nearly £1m.
Investors in Samba Mobile include: David Wheldon, ex Global Ad Director of the Coca Cola Company, ex Tempus Board Member andex Global Brand Director atVodafone; and Richard Brennan, one of the original founding Executives of Orange, and an experienced angel investor in a number of successful start-ups.
The Samba service, which launched in July 2012, allows users to select and watch video advertisements via their own Samba dashboard to earn mobile broadband credit on the 3 mobile network, which they use via a Samba dongle or micro SIM.
For brands and media agencies, Sambas ad-selector model drives engagement with consumers.
The company claims that in the first four months since launch has already hit over one million views per month, with users displaying much longer dwell times on branded videos and ads than other video ad formats.
This investment round is earmarked for product development to create further enhancements to Sambas brand engagement platform including social features, ad rankings, and the introduction of premium content.
Ben Atherton, CEO at Samba Mobile said: “As more and more tablets are sold, the demand for reliable, great value mobile broadband increases. This drives customers to choose Samba as the only content service in the UK which also gives free internet access. Our model is based on a simple value exchange where users select the video ads that they want to see and earn mobile broadband MB. Its precisely because the consumer exercises a choice that we see superior engagement metrics. This next round of investment will allow us Samba to further enhance the user experience by providing more content choice and social features, and enable deeper ad targeting for brands.”
Richard Brennan, angel investor in Samba Mobile said: “The Samba service has already hit the ground running with sign-ups moving faster than initial expectations. This of course makes the company a highly investible prospect since they have proven the business case for providing ad funded mobile broadband.”
www.sambamobile.com
