Mobile Search company mobilePeople gets USD 8 million from Via Venture Partners

mobilePeople received a $8million USD investment round from Nordic based venture capitalist firm Via Venture Partners.

From the press release:
 
“Via Venture Partners only invests in the best of breed technology and companies and mobilePeople is a case in point. Mobile People has consistently proved that mobile local search and advertising is a fantastic monetisation opportunity and that dedication to customers pays dividends in the long run,” said Peter Thorlund Haahr, Senior Partner at Via Ventures.
 
Jens Andersen, CEO and co-founder of mobilePeople commented on the funding: “This injection of funds will allow us to ensure our global expansion and to focus on the continuous roll-out of innovative mobile services and local advertising solutions for our customers in the directory publishing space.”

What we think?
I thought mobilePeople was now a joint venture: http://www.gomonews.com/local-matters-and-mobilepeople-merge/
But there is no mention of local matters in this release so am not sure how that works. But this is good news for mobilePeople that definitely has a niche in the market. International expansion will be good – but moving to an online rather than ODP environment would also be good for the local mobile search business.

Related News:

1. mobilePeople plans for global growth following $8million USD investment from Via Venture Partners
2. Local Matters and mobilePeople Merge
3. mobilePeople adds sponsored links to Norways search engine Schibsted
4. Jumptap gets USD 26 million in Series D funding
5. Local mobile search provider mobilePeople creates Java application for Truvo