Location-based services built purely on global positioning infrastructure such as
Airbiquity Inc. and Jentro Technologies GmbH have attracted large amounts of venture capital and are gaining traction in automotive and consumer markets. But Rosum Corp. has drawn $15 million in new
funding for an alternative system that integrates GPS with broadcast television infrastructure, which may be better suited for urban environments where consumer applications are dominant.
Rosum brought back previous investors Charles River Ventures, Allegis Capital, Disney investment arm Steamboat Ventures and KTB Ventures, along with the TruePosition Inc. subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp. The deal will support the company's development of software for delivering location- and timing-based services such as search, advertising, and security to areas where GPS is unreliable, such as indoors and in densely built urban settings. Rosum's technology takes advantage of existing broadcast television signal delivery in areas with strong cellular service and broadband penetration.
The round is the company's first since a March 2003 round of $16 million and brings total funding in the eight-year-old company to $36 million. The new money will advance a system that uses television signals to triangulate and calculate precise locations.
Rosum already has partnerships with Intel Corp. and 2Wire Inc, and the new capital will allow it to accelerate expansion in the mobile TV market, which it expects will ship as many as many as 446 million mobile handsets annually by 2011.
-- Clifford CarlsenSee April 15 press release from Rosum Corp.
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