Bubble Motion, a voice short message service provider, has raised $6 million in its third round of funding led by Palomar Ventures. The California-based firm has earlier raised funding from Sequoia Capital and its India arm, Sequoia Capital India. Mohit Bhatnagar, a managing director with Sequoia India, is an advisor to the firm. With new funding, Bubble Motion plans an aggressive expansion of it’s product portfolio and its international subscriber footprint. The company's clients in India include Bharti Airtel.
Bubble Motion has managed to raise around $35 million in venture capital funding till now. Its other investors include Comcast Interactive Capital and NCD Investors. The firm raised $10 million from Sequoia Capital and Sequoia Capital India in 2006, after which it raised another $14 million in 2008. Sequoia Capital and Comcast Interactive have also particapted in the latest round. Al Snyder, CEO at Aepona, and Amanda Reed of Palomar Ventures joined the company’s Board of Directors with the latest round.
Bubble Motion is founded by Sunil Coushik and Venu Sriperumal. But they seem to have moved out of active management as the company is now headed by Thomas Clayton, who is now the president and CEO. Clayton was appointed as CEO in 2007.
The company may also look at acquisitions with new funding. "Even though we already had a strong balance sheet, we felt that it made sense to have some additional capital for strategic acquisitions and R&D investments to accelerate our growth," said Tom Clayton, President and CEO of Bubble Motion.
Another voice SMS firm backed by venture capital investors is New Jersey-based Kirusa Inc. The company has raised funding from Helion Venture Partners, Nexus India Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Erasmic Venture Fund (now Accel India), among others. Its clients in India include Vodafone, MTNL, Loop Mobile, Tata Teleservices and Idea Cellular.