Last week news hit that Littleton, MA-based mobile IT startup Movik Networks scored $25 million in a Series C financing, so I caught up with CEO John St. Amand to figure out just what the company is going to do with all that money.
The company, founded in 2007, develops hardware boxes for wireless operators that use proprietary software to assess the quality of network connections with mobile devices and determine how to best deliver content like video, websites, and social media posts. The company’s “Content Aware Edge” products can determine how to best stream content to different devices, and can also cache content for faster streaming in the future. Movik says its product helps mobile users load some types of content 50 percent faster.
“That’s what the consumer sees,” says St. Amand. “The operator sees a much more efficient utilization of their radio access resources.”
The company is using some of the big bucks to market Content Aware Edge to mobile carriers, who then decide how to set up the boxes in a given area, he says. He just joined the firm in January, coming from a venture partner position Highland Capital Partners, who invested in the round with North Bridge Venture Partners.
“The board was looking for someone who could really take Movik to the point of getting the product installed and getting reliability with operators,” St. Amand says of his appointment. Movik founding CEO Ramji Raghavan took on the role of chief technology officer when St. Amand came on.
The $25 million funding was led by Oak Investment Partners, a new Movik investor who also funded St. Amand’s previous company, Telica. The voice switch maker was bought for $330 million in 2004 by Lucent, which later merged with Alcatel (NYSE: [[ticker:ALU]]).
Movik, which has somewhere around 70 employees, ships its product directly from Littleton to customers, says St. Amand. The company has ongoing trials with its products, but hasn’t announced any customers yet—we can expect that soon, though, says St. Amand.
