Rome-based mobile VAS firm Neomobile SpA, which recently raised an undisclosed amount of capital from UK-based BlueGem L.P. (which now owns 45% in the company), is now using the funds to expand in India and eying acquisitions to achieve scale. Neomobile already has a presence in India through its acquisition of Spanish firm Arena Mobile last year with its last round of funding. Arena has been in India since 2006, and has launched services such as Speedflirt (a dating community) on Airtel, beauty alerts and film gossip with USSD subscription packs, and live broadcast SMS alerts from Filmfare Awards in 2007. Its revenues are over $1 million, Ranjan Reddy, Vice President- Global Sales at Neomobile India told Medianama. Neomobile India's clients include Nokia Interactive and Diageo for mobile marketing. It has also undertaken campaigns for media buying with Group M. These contribute to 15% of India P&L. Acquisition In Mind The company will acquire a domestic firm "not before 2011". Neomobile's CEO Gianluca D'Augustino told Medianama, "Our typical approach is: we enter a market, we start, we make some mistakes, we correct and improve, once we understand the market, we settle down and then we make an acquisition. An acquisition partner is the only way to grow in this industry." The company believes in outsourcing technology and will focus on content packaging, so its target acquisition will be a technology-strong VAS firm. Neomobile is expanding to Delhi and Bangalore and undergoing consolidation - it currently has an 80-90 people strong creative…
