Nokia’s Here Buys Medio Systems To Push More Personalised Location Services:
Less than two weeks after buying natural language startup Desti, Nokia’s mapping division Here is announcing another acquisition to enhance its service: it is buying Medio Systems, a specialist in predictive analytics that Nokia will use to give users of its location-based services more personalised results.
Nokia is not disclosing the terms of the deal but we are trying to find out.
Medio, based out of Seattle, was founded in 2004, originally setting out to develop a contextualised search engine for mobile phone users but later pivoting to provide a more B2B product, in the form of analytics and predictive modelling based on a company’s user data.
It’s not clear how much Medio has raised in total: the only round listed in Crunchbase is a Series B for $30 million. Investors in that round included Trilogy Equity Partnership, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Frazier Technology Ventures and Accel Partners. According to its profile on AngelList,
other investors include T-Ventures (the investment arm of T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom), Verizon Ventures (the eponymous VC arm of the carrier) and a former partner from US Venture Partners.
Medio, based out of Seattle, was founded in 2004, originally setting out to develop a contextualised search engine for mobile phone users but later pivoting to provide a more B2B product, in the form of analytics and predictive modelling based on a company’s user data.
It’s not clear how much Medio has raised in total: the only round listed in Crunchbase is a Series B for $30 million. Investors in that round included Trilogy Equity Partnership, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Frazier Technology Ventures and Accel Partners. According to its profile on AngelList,
other investors include T-Ventures (the investment arm of T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom), Verizon Ventures (the eponymous VC arm of the carrier) and a former partner from US Venture Partners.
T-Mobile and Verizon are among Medio’s customers, along with ABC, Disney, Rovio, CBS and Telus. Unlike Desti, whose app was pulled from Apple’s App Store after the acquisition as Nokia prepared to integrate its technology into the Here platform, the intention will be to keep Medio’s existing business and customer relationships going, Here’s VP of search and discovery Don Zereski told me in an interview.
But it’s not clear yet it will keep the Medio branding. “I don’t know if we will keep it or not,” Zereski says.
Medio’s existing product offering is divided into three areas — Measure, Predict and Act, with corresponding ability to offer its customers to do things like offer dashboard with real-time
customer statistics around how they are using a mobile service; figure out who is most likely to churn away from a service; and then push suggested content to them to keep them from doing so.
Right now, it’s not obvious from Medio’s site that it’s focus has been specifically on location-based content but that looks like how it will be channelled going forward. Here’s intention, it seems, will be to use some form of all three in different aspects of its service. It will be able to offer businesses that use its mapping platform the ability track how and when to market to users based on location; and for consumers it will give them more personalised results when they search for places, based on their past search and browsing history.
Zereski tells me these kinds of search results will be complementing, not replacing, the content that Here already provides to users for things like places to eat nearby. Instead of people pulling information, this will be about pushing relevant suggestions to people before they ask, he says.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of July, and Nokia is “absolutely” looking to bring on Medio’s 60 employees as part of the deal, he says.
But it’s not clear yet it will keep the Medio branding. “I don’t know if we will keep it or not,” Zereski says.
Medio’s existing product offering is divided into three areas — Measure, Predict and Act, with corresponding ability to offer its customers to do things like offer dashboard with real-time
customer statistics around how they are using a mobile service; figure out who is most likely to churn away from a service; and then push suggested content to them to keep them from doing so.
Right now, it’s not obvious from Medio’s site that it’s focus has been specifically on location-based content but that looks like how it will be channelled going forward. Here’s intention, it seems, will be to use some form of all three in different aspects of its service. It will be able to offer businesses that use its mapping platform the ability track how and when to market to users based on location; and for consumers it will give them more personalised results when they search for places, based on their past search and browsing history.
Zereski tells me these kinds of search results will be complementing, not replacing, the content that Here already provides to users for things like places to eat nearby. Instead of people pulling information, this will be about pushing relevant suggestions to people before they ask, he says.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of July, and Nokia is “absolutely” looking to bring on Medio’s 60 employees as part of the deal, he says.
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