Exclusive – Mobile application developer Geodelic has raised $7 million in a Series B financing round led by MK Capital, with previous backers Clearstone Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures participating.
The round brings the total amount of capital injected into the company to more than $10 million.
Initially incubated by Clearstone in 2008, Geodelic develops a free application for mobile phones that come with ‘search-less search’, meaning the app automatically browses and shows your points of interests in your immediate vicinity. The company was founded by Rahul Sonnad, who previously founded thePlatform, a Web video publishing service he sold to Comcast back in 2006.
The Geodelic app, which is available for iPhone and Android, lets you swipe through locations to quickly find a good coffee joint, closest bank, grocery store or favorite restaurant.
The application is also capable of learning what you seem to like, presenting you results based on your profile. Users get the added benefit of Geodelic’s integration with select reservation and review services (e.g. OpenTable).
The Geodelic network also contains content-specific mobile guides, which can soon be created by anyone. One example is the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which enables users to discover the attraction, locate their favorite stars of stage and screen and to access photos and biographies straight from the app.
Additionally, Geodelic technology has been licensed by carriers such as Korea Telecom to allow enterprise customers to quickly deploy mobile guides and to interact with their consumer base.
Geodelic’s makes money by partnering with brands and marketers to create a network of so-called Experiences. The startup’s authoring system allows businesses to publish location-triggered content to Geodelic users on the fly and provides detailed, real-time statistics they can use to improve their location-based offerings. A relevance engine even tracks user behavior, allowing marketers to reach consumers as efficiently as possible at the point of sale.
To date, the Geodelic application has been downloaded over half a million times on Android phones, the company says. It is also available for iPhone (iTunes link), and currently in development for Blackberry devices.
