Pageonce Lands $6.5 Million To Roll Out More Personal Assistant Apps
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Pageonce has raised $6.5 million in a first round of funding to build smartphone apps that help consumers manage their finances and travel schedules.
The round was led by the Israeli Venture firm Pitango Venture Capital and brings the company’s total raised to date to $10 million. So far, Pageonce’s Personal Assistant, has registered one million users on the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Windows platforms, said Jim Scheinman, Pageonce’s COO and CMO. The application aggregates various accounts, including banks, airlines, rental car companies, or even utility companies. Once usernames and passwords are entered, Pageonce will alert you when bills are due or flights are late—without a lot of manual inputting.
With the additional funding, Pageonce will build more applications and experiment with its business model.
Currently, PageOnce has two versions of the Personal Assistant. One is free and ad-supported, the other has no ads, but costs about $10. Scheinman, who recently joined Pageonce after co-founding Bebo, which was sold to AOL (NYSE: AOL), and co-founding Friendster, said there’s a huge opportunity for very targeted advertising with a product like Personal Assistant. “Our advertising model, which will kick in next year, is really exciting. We’ll be offering great deals and marketing offers to our consumers that are relevant and attractive.” They know when one of there users flies from New York to San Francisco, and they are a frequent flyer on American Airlines and always stay at the same hotel. Why not offer them a hotel discount? “It’s a high-value ad…These are the kind of direct advertising we will enable because we have that information. We have to be careful how to implement it.”
As far as new applications, Pageonce will be focused on separating out some of the features from the assistant app, so there can be more targeted versions. They’ve already launched the “Mobile Minute Tracker,” which allows people to track their minutes and text messages. Next up is a standalone travel version and then a bill-payment product. Scheinman said they are frequently compared to Mint.com, and other companies that help you keep track of expenses or travel itineraries. He said the big difference is that they are focused on mobile, and on making it work as seamlessly as possible without the user having to enter a lot of data.
The new round of funding will help the company grow. Right now, its to himself and the CEO Guy Goldstein in the U.S., and their 15 engineers are in Israeli. Over the next year, they want to expand the product team in the U.S. and expect to add around 18 employees.
Posted In: Mobile, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital
